mn V k THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS WORK IN SPANISH BY THE SAME AUTHOR ESPANOLES E INGLESES En el Siglo XVI (ESTUDIOS HISTORICOS) Consisting of the following studies in Spanish : — MERCENARIOS ESPANOLES EN INGLATERRA. ANTONIO DE GUARAS. ESPANA Y MARIA STUART. EL ENIGMA DE ANTONIO PEREZ. LA CONSPIRACION DEL DR. RUY LOPEZ. ESPANOLES E IRLANDESES. EL CONDE DE GONDOMAR EN INGLATERRA. 3 j. 6d. net. LONDON : EVELEIGH NASH 32 BEDFORD STREET. MARY STUART WHEN SIXTEEN F'ainter unknown. Owner, the Duke of Devonshire. I'hoto., Hanfstncni:!- The LOVE AFFAIRS of MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS *A POLITICAL HISTO^T BY MARTIN HUME \v EDITOR OF THE CALENDARS OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE) AUTHOR OF 'THE COURTSHIPS OF OUEEN ELIZABETH' LONDON EVELEIGH ^Q^ASH MC Mill Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty PREFACE The science of historical writing has never entirely shaken itself free from the vices of its origin. The heroic ballad, hyperbolically exalting the central figure whose doughty deeds it sang, was necessarily the work of a whole-souled admirer of its subject : the kingly chronicle that succeeded it was written, either by a court scribe in the pay of the potentate whose reign it recorded, or by a dependant of the victorious rival who had deposed him. The natural result was that the conspicuous personages of history were usually repre- sented as paragons of goodness and wisdom, or as monsters of crime and folly. They were assumed to have created the circumstances by which they were surrounded, and to be swayed in their policy with regard to them, only by their own innate virtue or viciousness. They were, indeed, regarded, not so much as human beings, subject to the ordinary mixed motives and impulses that rule all men, as originat- ing forces, dominated either by beneficent or malefic instincts. When once they were classed, either amongst the sheep or the goats, there was the end vi LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY of it, and there was no necessity to seek any further to find the mainspring of all the actions of their lives. Now that the opening of national archives and the extensive reproduction of historical documents have rendered it possible, and indeed necessary, to supple- ment the old-fashioned history, taking a broad and superficial view of events, by more intimate studies of the real motives and influences of political action, the same tendency is observable. For the sake of con- venience the episodical histories, which of late years have multiplied so rapidly, have usually assumed a biographical form ; a series of events being grouped around the prominent figures, in order that the human interest of the historical narrative may be increased. The result, in many cases, is excellent, though it sometimes happens that the author is tempted to shut out from his purview all political factors other than his own subject ; but the great drawback to the grouping of historical incidents around a prominent actor in the events related is, that the more interesting the personality the more centralised in his character the history becomes, whilst the events themselves and the concurrent influences upon them are propor- tionately dwarfed and thrown out of perspective. Studies dealing with events, written round such fascinating individualities, in a great number of cases, indeed, become passionate attacks upon, or vindica- PREFACE vii tions of, the characters of the principal persons, and it is assumed that if the latter can be proved either to have been very good or very bad, the influence they exerted upon their times needs no further explanation. The only excuse that can be advanced for the pro- duction of a new book on Mary Stuart is that her supremely interesting personality has so frequently led her historians into the by-path of inquiry as to her virtue or vice, as to have obscured, to some extent, the reasons for her disastrous political failure ; which, as it seems to me, did not spring from her goodness or badness as a woman, but from certain human weaknesses of character, quite compatible with general goodness and wisdom or with the reverse, but which fatally handicapped her as against antagonists who are less subject to such weakness. It is a curious consideration that the sixteenth century was sharply divided into two well-marked periods, the virile first half, when Charles v., Henry vin., and Francis i. — three men if ever such existed — made circumstances and originated policies ; and the feminine latter half, when Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Stuart, Catharine de Medici, and the cautious, timid, narrow, almost womanish Philip n. had to deal, as best they could, according to their lights, with the circumstances and problems that had been set for viii LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY them by others. The whole of the policy of these four most prominent personages of their time was consistently feminine, if not feline. The chicane of political courtship and marriage proceeded without interruption for many years as a main branch of European diplomacy. If a rival was becoming too strong, his neighbours did not attempt to beat him in the field, but developed a languishing desire to marry another rival, who was dropped as soon as the object of the wooing was served. With bewildering muta- tions in the persons of her suitors, Elizabeth managed to keep the ball rolling until she could snap her aged fingers at the world, and boasted that, after all, she died a virgin ; whilst Catharine practically ruled France for twenty years by her dexterous manipulation of the matrimonial affairs of her children. It was Mary Stuart's misfortune, as it was many years later that of her unhappy niece Arabella, that she thought she was capable of playing Elizabeth's cunning game without Elizabeth's peculiar advantages ; and the disaster that fell upon her cause was the direct result of this mistake. An attempt is made in this book to tell, at length, the story of the marriage intrigues by which Mary Stuart hoped to compass her great ambition. The question of how good, or how bad, she was as a woman, has been kept as much as possible in the background. It is specially as a PREFACE ix politician that I have wished to regard her, for she represented in her own person the principle which, if she had succeeded, would have destroyed the Refor- mation, and established the supremacy of Spanish Catholicism in Europe. However wicked she might have been personally, that would not have altered the result, if the ends she sought in her marriages had been attained. Murder was at the time almost as legitimate an instrument of policy as matrimony ; and a generation that revered Catharine de Medici after St. Bartholomew, that applauded Philip u. for the execution of Montigny, and lauded Alba to the skies ; a generation that regarded with approval the religious martyrdoms under Mary Tudor and Elizabeth, would not have turned against Mary Stuart, if her diplomacy had been successful. Every one in Scotland and out of it knew that the men who persecuted her were much more guilty of the murder of Darnley than she was ; and yet they were exalted and honoured until their political enemies wrought vengeance upon them. The recent publication in full of the Scottish State Papers relating to Mary in Mr. Bain's Calendars ; the Hatfield Papers, printed by the Historical Manuscripts Commission ; and the textual translations of the Spanish State Papers of the period, produced by His Majesty's Government under my own editorship, have enabled me to supplement other known sources of x LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY information with many details and extracts from documents which have not hitherto been quoted at length. In a book such as this, abounding in controversial points, many of my conclusions will doubtless be challenged ; but I would wish to assure my readers, that though I have nothing extenuated, I have nought set down in malice, my one object being to elucidate the influence exercised, in the most critical period of modern history, by the management of her Love Affairs by the most pathetically interesting woman in the annals of our country. MARTIN HUME. London, September 1903. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ...... v CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY . . . . i II. MARY'S EARLY YEARS IN FRANCE . 38 III. MARRIED LIFE AND WIDOWHOOD IN FRANCE . . . . .71 IV. MARY QUEEN REGNANT OF SCOTLAND 117 V. MARY IN SCOTLAND. DON CARLOS OR ROBERT DUDLEY? . . .158 VI. DIPLOMACY FERSUS LOVE . . 195 VII. A GREAT CONSPIRACY . . .233 VIII. REVOLT OF THE PROTESTANTS . 271 IX. BOTHWELL AND DARNLEY . . 314 X. INFATUATION AND DISGRACE . . 365 XI. MARY IN ENGLAND . . .426 INDEX ... 477 XI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MARY STUART, .... Frontispiece From a contemporary painting in the collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. HENRY STUART, LORD DARNLEY, . to face 224 From a contemporary painting in the collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. JAMES HEPBURN, EARL OF BOTHWELL, „ 384 From a contemporary miniature in the collection of the Hon Mrs. Boyle. The Love Affairs of MARY Queen of Scots CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY New problems created by the Reformation — Readjustment of European power — Personal influence in politics — Personal characteristics of Mary Stuart — Their effect upon her political actions — Her complicity in Darnley's murder of secondary importance politically — The struggle between England and France to control Scottish policy — Death ot James v. — Birth of Mary, 8th December 1542 — Attempts of Henry vm. to obtain possession of the infant — Her proposed marriage with Edward, Prince of Wales — Arran and England — Sadlier's description of the infant Mary — Falsity of Mary of Guise and Arran — The treaty between England and Scotland for Mary's marriage — Mary crowned — Henry vm. betrayed^Lennox sides with England — Treaty signed between Scotland and France — Mary to marry the Dauphin Francis — England at war with Scotland — Intrigues to capture Mary — She is sent to France, August 1548. When in the great hall at Worms, on that ever- memorable April day in 152 1, before the panic- stricken princes, Luther insolently flung at the Emperor his defiance of the mediaeval Church, the crash, though all unheard by the ears of men, shook to their base the rotting foundations upon which for hundreds of years the institutions of Europe had rested. The sixteenth century thenceforward was a period of disintegration and reconstruction, In which fresh lines of cleavage between old political associates A 2 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY were opened, new affinities were formed, and the inter- national balance readjusted. Hopes, aims, and fears before unknown ; ambition, greed, envy, and defiance were to mingle and divide in the bubbling cauldron of change, with infinite perturbation and distress, for many a year, before the atoms cooled and coalesced into the form which modern Europe took. This process of transformation from medievalism to the systems which have developed into our own gives to the study of sixteenth-century history a fascination and importance possessed by that of no other modern period ; and justifies the minute consideration of every influence which left its mark upon the events of the time. Although I am not inclined to exaggerate the power exercised over the development of peoples by the mere personality of the prominent actors in the great drama of national progress, it would be idle to deny that the peculiar characters of the high personages who directed policies in the sixteenth century had a very consider- able bearing upon the final result of the long struggle. The cold-blooded, cautious suspicion which dictated the system of Philip n. hampered his action and fatally handicapped his cause. Whilst he was pondering and seeking compromising pledges, binding everybody but himself, others were taking the inevitable risks and acting. It is almost platitudinous to say, that if Philip had not been so desperately anxious to ' mak siccar ' before he moved, the civilisation of Europe would have developed upon lines quite different from those now followed. Again, if Catharine de Medici had possessed a tithe of her Spanish son-in-law's con- scientious steadfastness, or any religious conviction at all ; had Charles ix. and Henry in. been decent PERSONAL INFLUENCE IN POLITICS 3 persons, or the Guise ambition less unscrupulous, France might have been spared its devastating civil wars, and religious liberty have been established as a principle in a country emancipated from Rome. Or if Elizabeth Tudor had not been from the circumstances of her birth inextricably bound up with the anti- papal party in Europe, England would probably have reverted to Catholicism. More than once Elizabeth was within an ace of making terms with the enemy at her gates, and entering the inner ring of old royalties, whom she alternately flattered and defied, and always envied. But the peculiarity of her parents' position, her own imperious hatred of submission, and the maritime enterprise of her people, always held her on the brink, and she never took the plunge. Elsewhere I have attempted to describe how Elizabeth's personal vanity and love of domination, counteracting each other, kept her for a lifetime in the matrimonial balance, and how her loudly trumpeted celibacy, com- bined with avidity for male admiration, were dexter- ously utilised for the national advantage by the Queen and her sagacious minister, though with frequent misgivings and apprehension at treading so slippery a declivity. But if Elizabeth by her long marriage juggle, and by the fortuitous adjustment of her qualities, contributed powerfully to keep England Protestant and France wavering ; secured for the critical years the inactivity of Spain, the resistance of Protestant Holland, and the freedom of English navigation, her rival Mary Stuart was a hardly less powerful factor in the triumph of England, by reason of certain defects in her character, the consequences of which will be dealt with at length in this book. 4 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Mary in most respects possessed a much finer and nobler nature than Elizabeth ; she was a woman of higher courage, of greater conviction, more generous, magnanimous, and confiding, and, apart from her incomparably greater beauty and fascination, possessed mental endowments fully equal if not superior to those of the English queen. But whilst the caution and love of mastery of the latter always at the critical moment saved her from her weakness, Mary Stuart possessed no such safeguards, and was periodically swept away, helplessly and irremediably, by the irre- sistible rush of her purely sexual passion. Nearly every writer who has dealt at length with the career of the most beautiful and unhappy of queens has been drawn into the vortex of controversy as to the genuineness or otherwise of the Casket Letters : and other perhaps more important points of Mary's life have been to some extent neglected or overshadowed by this interesting problem. Probably everything that can be said has been said on this point, usually with a partisan violence on both sides which has done much to obscure the real issue. Mr. Andrew Lang has recently summed up with great acumen and im- partiality the whole evidence for and against the Queen, on a close examination of the text of the letters themselves ; and the fact of the subject having been treated so fairly and dispassionately by him from his own point of view, clears the ground somewhat for an equally impartial consideration of the general aspect of Mary Stuart's character and actions, especially with regard to the influence exercised upon the latter by her lack of control in her various love affairs. We shall see that the deplorable errors and follies that led her MARY'S PERSONALITY 5 downward from freedom to lifelong imprisonment, from happiness to misery, from a throne to a scaffold ; that warped her goodness, made her a helpless play- thing for her cunning enemies, and ruined the religious cause she loved better than her life, were the outcome, not of deliberate wickedness, or even of habitual poli- tical unwisdom, but of fits of undisciplined sexual passion, amounting in certain instances to temporary mania, combined with the unquenchable ambition inherited from her mother's house. Beauty and other feminine perfections she must needs have possessed — a lovely hand, a sweet voice, caressing grace and ready tears, amongst others — for, after allowing for all the courtly flattery of a generation that compared Eliza- beth's painted mask at sixty to the face of an angel, Ronsard's tender lays and Brantome's enthusiastic praise of the Scottish queen convince us, if we had no other proof, as we have hundreds, that many men upon whom she looked were dazzled and blinded by her peculiar personality. But, withal, a contemplation of her known authentic portraits, even those taken in the best years of her youth and happiness, does not carry conviction that her physical beauty alone can have been the cause of the extraordinary influence she exercised over the men who came within the sphere of her attraction. The subtle quality we vaguely call fascination must have been hers to an extraordinary degree to reinforce the charms of the long, fair, oval face, the narrow, side-glancing eyes, and the straight, lengthy Greek nose ; the fascination must have been there, though the painters merely hint it, that sets men's hearts aflame, and sends the hot blood surging up to blind the judgment. And fascination such as 6 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY this, and all men know it, let them feign ignorance as they may, is but the involuntary natural manifestation of the character within, transcending speech and leap- ing over barriers, appealing alone to hearts attuned, and gathering potency itself from the answer flashed back unwittingly by those who respond to its sensuous message. As was the case with those of Elizabeth, what we call, for want of a better name, the love affairs of Mary Stuart were in most cases purely political, and intended by those who promoted them to serve interests apart from the happiness of the persons principally con- cerned. It is intended in the present book to give a brief review of the various proposals made for marriage with the Queen of Scots, in order to explain their bearing upon the great political issues of the time, and to show how in certain cases where Mary's imagination was stirred her political judgment, con- spicuous in the other cases, deserted her, and her temporary weakness led her and her cause to ruin, and powerfully aided the policy of Elizabeth. It was a game so skilfully played by those who took the leading part in it, the broad issues were so tremendous, the stakes of the players themselves so important to them personally, that no points could be lost with impunity ; and we shall be able to observe that Mary Stuart failed because she made more mistakes than her adversaries, mistakes, it is true, often arising out of her superior magnanimity and her stronger trust in the honour and honesty of others. This was of itself a weakness at a time when the falsity of politicians had been elevated to a fine art ; and her own early lessons must have taught her that dissimu- CAUSES OF HER MISFORTUNES 7 lation was the favourite weapon of contemporary statesmen, and more especially of the school to which her instructors belonged. But when to this weakness was added the belief on her part that she could use matrimonial intrigue to forward her ends in the same way that Elizabeth did, notwithstanding the great difference in their characters, the inevitability of her ruinous failure was manifest. Whether she was actually privy to the murder of Darnley or not does not vitally affect the main issue. Unless we are content to believe that the whole of the contents of the Casket were forged, which I most emphatically am not, however much certain of the papers may have been doctored, we must come to the conclusion that her infatuation for the person of Bothwell began before her husband's death, as we know it continued after it, notwithstanding the euphemistic explanations at a subsequent period, when the glamour had worn oft her temporary obsession ; and in that case her actual complicity or otherwise in the murder of her consort would pro- bably have made no great difference in the march of events. Darnley, with his weakness, his vices, and his follies, surrounded by nobles who hated and were jealous of him, at issue with his wife whom he had disgusted, and scorned by a people whom he had offended by his presumption, was condemned in any case to disappear, as Murray, Lennox, and Morton subsequently disappeared, with much less reason against them than he had. It was not so much I);irnley's death and the assumed complicity of his wife in his murder that led Mary along the first steps on the via dolorosa of Carbery, Loch Leven, 8 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Carlisle, and Fotheringay, as the anger of her envious, discontented nobles, and the indignation of Murray, that the Queen should endure, even if she did not seek, the adulterous embraces of a Scotsman of no better rank than their own. The timely murder of Darnley was only an added opprobrium and ignominy to the main fact. The value of human life, as against the assumed welfare of the State or the sovereign, was so small in the sixteenth century, in comparison with that which we attach to it to-day, that Mary might well have been willing to wink at the sacrifice of her troublesome consort without incurring the penalty of being regarded as a monster of wickedness, as she would be according to the ethics of our own times. The violent removal of obnoxious personages was a recognised political instrument of the sixteenth cen- tury, and the act was easily condoned for the sake of the result. Philip n. regarded himself, and was regarded by his people, as a saint, notwithstanding the sacrifice of Montigny, the Prince of Orange, and many other human obstacles in the path of his policy. Catharine de Medici lived revered, and died in the odour of sanctity, in spite of St. Bartholomew and poisonings innumerable. The death of Amy Robsart of Throckmorton, and a host of other suspected victims, did not suffice to make Leicester unpopular ; and the monk Clement was hailed by the clerical party throughout Europe as a hero for killing Henry in., just as the latter was welcomed with open arms by the Huguenots after he had gloated over the murder of Guise. Nay, Mary Stuart herself, when Murray fell before Hamilton's harquebus, had nothing but sweet words and rewards for the assassin of her brother, and CAUSES OF HER MISFORTUNES 9 not one thought the worse of her for that. It is therefore easy to overrate the political importance of Mary's guilt or innocence in Darnley's murder, and the question has concentrated the attention of inves- tigators, not really so much on account of its influence upon historical events, which was purposely exag- gerated at the time and since, as because it decides to a large extent whether the Queen of Scots is to be regarded personally as a saint cruelly sacrificed or as a sinner rightly punished ; and provides a ground whereupon sentimental polemics of opposite views may disport and attack each other's creeds. An attempt will therefore be made in this book to trace the influence aimed at or exercised upon the great events of the century of the Reformation by the various matrimonial affairs of Mary Stuart, and by her personal idiosyncrasy in connection with them, whilst avoiding the religious or romantic bias that has so often led the Queen's biographers to tell only that part of the story that supports their particular views regarding her goodness or badness as a woman accord- ing to the code of the present century ; an aspect of her life which is quite secondary in real historical importance, however attractive it may be as a subject for abstract speculation. In the secular struggle of the house of Aragon and its successor the Emperor Charles v. with France for the domination of Italy, the only effectual guarantee against the danger of England's actively throwing in her lot with her traditional friend the possessor of Spain and Flanders and attacking the northern coasts of France whilst the latter power had its forces occupied in the south, was for the King of France to keep a tight hold io LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY of his alliance with Scotland, and so to control the policy of the Scots as to enable him at any time to produce a diversion on the Border that should keep England too busy to trouble her southern neighbour, or interfere in favour of the Emperor when he was at war with his rival. The existence of the Scottish ' back door ' to England, with an ever-probable enemy on the other side of it, had thus for centuries been a check on English influence and power, and a humilia- tion to English kings in their antagonism with their nearest Continental neighbour. But with the spread of Lutheranism in Germany, and Henry vin.'s defiance of the papacy, the Catholic powers, drawn together by an instinctive movement of self-preservation in face of a common danger, found a fresh bond of union in their orthodoxy, which, to some extent, superseded their old antagonistic ambitions. In these circum- stances the policy of English statesmen, which aimed at the control of Scottish foreign relations to the exclusion of French influence, became, not as it had been for centuries, simply a desirable object to be patiently striven for in season and out of season, but an imperative need, in order to preserve England's in- dependence ; for if Henry lost the power of balancing one of the great Catholic sovereigns against the other, he had no longer the means of shutting the Scottish back door, and might at any time be attacked, front and rear, to his inevitable destruction. A series of royal minorities and consequent regencies had weakened the power of the sovereign in Scotland almost to extinction, and the lawless, jealous, semi- independent nobles practically monopolised the armed force of the country. Their poverty and greed made THE EUROPEAN BALANCE n them particularly susceptible to such influence as Henry viii. could wield, and from the early days of his defection from Rome divide et impera became the active policy of the English king in his nephew's realm. By that course alone could he hope for safety for his own country. At a time when (1542) the rival ambitions of Francis and the Emperor in Italy still caused their mundane antagonism to be stronger than their religious affinity, and both had need of England, the opportunity for Henry to prevail in Scotland came. He had chosen to side with Charles in the coming war, but before openly showing his hand he set about disabling the Scots for harm whilst Francis was too busy to defend them. A pretext for war was always easy to find by the wolf against the lamb, and on the plea that James v. was mustering his forces on the Border, the strife began. James was surrounded by traitors, for English money and religious dissension had profoundly divided the Scottish gentry. Cardinal Beaton, the King's principal adviser, was intensely unpopular, the powerful Douglas family was disaffected or exiled, and the forces with which James rashly attempted to raid the western English marches, though large, were wild and undisciplined. The disgraceful rout of the Scots at Solway Moss (24th November 1542) was a natural result, and sent James, heart- broken, flying to Tantallon ; thence to Edinburgh to meet his divided Council, and then across the Forth to Falkland to die. Only four years and a half before this Mary of Guise, a worthy daughter of that branch of the house of Lorraine that had settled in France, had married James as his second wife. Two sons had been born 12 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY to them and had died in infancy. The gossips were agog for weeks before the battle with premature news of the birth of another child ; and whilst the Scottish king lay sick unto death, there came to him tidings that, on the 8th December 1542, at Linlithgow, a girl- child had been born to him, an heiress to his ancient crown and to the troubles that had overwhelmed her father. The babe was said to be premature, ' a very weak child and not like to live,' 1 but in any case her coming brought no solace to James. He had been a gallant lover and faithless ; Mary of Lorraine had been but a passing fancy, and was already supplanted in his heart ; a child by her, and especially a girl, touched him less than one by his mistress at Tantallon would have done ; and he heard the news with his prophetic presage of evil which has passed into com- mon speech. f The devil go with it. It will end as it began : it came with a woman and it will end in a woman ' ; 2 a prediction not fulfilled by facts. The King spoke little afterwards, as Pitscottie tells us, but ' turned his back to the lords, and his face to the wall ' ; and when his hour had come, ' looked up and beheld all his nobles about him, and gave a little smile of laughter, then kissed his hand,' and so passed ; leaving the week-old Mary Stuart queen of the troubled realm. When James's strength and speech were ebbing, the Cardinal held to his dying eyes a scrap of paper for his assent. It purported to be a will leaving Beaton regent, jointly with other nobles of his choice — Arran, Murray, Argyle, and Huntly — but was afterwards asserted by Arran to be a forgery, 1 Calendar of State Papers, Henry Fill., vol. xvii. p. 657. 2 John Knox. BIRTH OF MARY 13 and the arrangement was upset after a few days' trial and a violent scene between the Cardinal and Arran, who, as head of the Hamiltons, claimed to be next heir to the crown. In the meanwhile Henry of England was busy. Some of the principal nobles and gentlemen of Scot- land had been taken prisoners at the Solway fight, and carried south in Henry's power. They were plied with arguments to show how patriotic and beneficial it would be to seize the opportunity of uniting England and Scotland by a marriage between the Prince of Wales and the baby Queen. They agreed with alacrity, and together with Bothwell and Angus, both English partisans in exile, signed a request to Henry, ' to take into his hands the young daughter of Scotland and the whole realm, with promise to serve him to that intent.' l But besides this undertaking, ten of the prisoners, 2 stalwarts for England all of them or enemies of Arran, signed a secret pact binding them- selves to recognise Henry as King of Scotland in case of the Queen's death, to the exclusion of the Hamiltons. On this undertaking the whole of the prisoners went north, to carry out the policy, but before they could enter Scotland news came that Arran had been made sole protector, and that a marriage was already being discussed in Edinburgh between his son and heir and Mary Stuart, 'whom they now call princess.' This was rightly looked upon as a blow at the English plans. It was obvious that 1 I In mill 'j >i Papers, p. 276. 2 They were Earls Cassilil and (Jlcncairn, Lords Maxwell, Fleming, Somerville, and Grey, Robert Enkine, Oliver St. Clair, and the Lairds of" (Jraigy and Carssie. i 4 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY if the news was true the prisoners could not openly advocate their policy at Arran's court until they knew how the land lay, and proposals were discussed for the. violent seizure of Mary and the fortresses, for the removal of Beaton and Arran, and for the assump- tion of power by the English faction. These desperate counsels were overruled, and the returning prisoners undertook to compass Henry's design by more peace- ful means, though with but small intention apparently of fulfilling their pledges. Already divisions were occurring in Scotland itself. Arran was at issue with the Cardinal, and suspicious of the French relatives of the Queen-Mother, the Duke of Guise, her father, being reported to be on the point of sailing for the purpose of seizing Dunbar and other strongholds. So even Arran began to chant to the English tune. He was reported to Henry as being ' a great favourer of the Scriptures, and a man of very good conscience ' ; ' a sober man, coveting no great things of the world,' and so on. Arran himself wrote to Lord Lisle (Dudley) that he ' intended to reform the state of the Kirk.' The returning Anglophil exile, Sir George Douglas, was received by him with effusion ; and in spite of Beaton's protest, Douglas and his brother, the Earl of Angus, were restored to their lands and station (January 1543). The effect of the Douglas influence was soon seen. Before the end of January Arran told Sir George, that if he were only sure of peace with England he would lay hands on the Cardinal, and reform the Church of Scotland, as Henry had done in England. 1 The very next day (27th January) the Cardinal was arrested in 1 Calendar, Henry Fill., vol. xviii. p. 54. ENGLISH INTRIGUES 15 the Council Chamber, and borne off amidst the shrieks of the Queen-Dowager, who had risen from her sick-bed at Linlithgow to attend the council. It was a strong measure, but Arran was not a strong man, and stood aghast at the effect of his own action. No priest in Edinburgh would say Mass, nor christen children, nor bury the dead. Argyle, Murray, Huntly, and the Catholic lords demanded the prelate's liberation, and threatened violence if their demand was not complied with. All this drove the overweighted Arran more and more into the arms of the Douglases and England. He busily promoted the circulation of the Scriptures in English, professed to fall into the English plans for the marriage of Mary, arranged a three months' truce to afford time for diplomatic action, and summoned a parliament at Edinburgh which should set the seal on the Anglicisation of Scotland and formally restore the lands of the Douglases. But Henry vin., impatient and imperious though he was, was not allowed to have all his own way. The Scottish returning nobles, now that they were in their own country and no longer prisoners, were less compliant than before; and French intrigue was busy, for Francis 1. could not afford to let Scotland go without a struggle before Henry declared war against him. Hollow negotiations for the marriage of Princess Mary Tudor and the Duke of Orleans were kept up acrimoniously in England, but they deceived nobody ; and though Guise himself still lingered in France, Henry was in a fever of apprehension when he heard that a French councillor, Cheman, was being sent to direct the Scottish Council pending the arrival of the Duke, and that Captain 1 6 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY L'Orges (Montgomerie) was to accompany him 'in case of a ruffle.' Worst of all news came that the young Earl of Lennox, a Gallicised Scotsman, hand- some and popular, and heir to the Scottish crown failing Arran, whom the French regarded as illegiti- mate, was also on his way to Scotland to marry the Queen- Mother and assert his heirship. 1 Henry's great anxiety was to obtain possession of the baby Queen Mary at once, in accordance with the promises made by the Scottish prisoners before they left England ; and to counteract Scottish opposition and French influence, Sir Ralph Sadlier was sent to Scotland. He was a graphic letterwriter as well as a skilled diplomatist, and has left us precious material for history, but he was handicapped by finding on his arrival at Edinburgh that the parliament had been prorogued the day before, after having adopted a resolution authorising ambassadors to proceed to England, but stipulating that Mary Stuart should remain in Scotland until she had completed her tenth year. It was, they said, ' an ryte hie and ryte grete inconvenient to the realme of Scotland to grant thareto (i.e. to Henry's demand for the immediate surrender of Mary) for sic reasons and causis as the imbass- adours hes hard declarit by the Counsale of Scotland, and as they can schew particulate themselves,' and they decided that, ' as for the keping of our said soverane ladyis personne within the realme . . . that her personne be kepit and nuirst principallie be hir moder, and four lordis of the realme that or lest suspect and chosen thereto. 2 At the same time a rival 1 Calendar, Henry Fill., vol. xviii. p. 85. 2 Sadlier State Papers. THE POSSESSION OF MARY 17 parliament of Beaton's friends had met at Perth, demanding the Cardinal's release, the suppression of the New Testament in the vernacular, and the appoint- ment of the persons to proceed to England as am- bassadors ; but on Arran's summons the lords who had adopted this course afterwards attended the Edinburgh parliament and agreed to its decisions. 1 Sadlier was made much of by Arran, but the latter, watched by jealous rivals, dared not modify the resolution to keep Mary in Scotland. Sir George Douglas and his brother Angus (Henry's brother-in- law) did their best : the former said that he had not slept three hours any night for six weeks, but even he repudiated any positive promise to deliver Mary to the English at once, ' and they that made such pro- mises are not able to perform them. For surely, quoth he, the noblemen will not agree to have her out of the realm, because she is their mistress.' Douglas, indeed, was rather indignant that Henry should expect so much at once. Had he not, he asked Sadlier, already worked wonders in the time, worming himself into Arran's confidence, causing the seizure of the Cardinal, and turning all Scotland away from France and towards England ? But, he said, affairs must not be pushed too hastily, or all would be spoilt. Give him time, he pleaded, and the King of England should govern Scotland ; but if it were tried now, ' there is not so little a boy but he will hurl stones against it, and the wives will handle their distaff's, and the commons 1 George D told Sadlier 'dial they had agreed well together, and though in the beginning one began t<> grin at another, there was none that would l>ite, nor fall out amongst themselves whereby they might make them ■ 1 1 1 prey to 1 nemii B 1 8 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY universally will rather die in it : yea, and many noble- men and all the clergy be fully against it.' Sadlier and his master were far from contented with this, and urged the forcible abduction of Mary ; but this again and again was declared to be impossible of execution, such were the precautions taken for her protection. On the 22nd March (1543) Sadlier had his first inter- view at Linlithgow with Mary of Guise, the Queen- Mother, who on this occasion showed herself as subtle and false as behoved to be a daughter of her house. There was nothing she desired more, she professed, than the union of England and Scotland by her child's marriage with Edward, and she would be guided by Henry alone in all things. But privately she warned Sadlier against Arran. He had himself told her that his arrangements with Henry were all pretence, and that they would keep Mary in Scotland until Henry died, when they could ' so handle matters that the contract should serve no purpose.' Arran, she knew, meant to marry the child to his own son, and the only way was for some plan to be devised by which Mary might be carried to England. ' If your Majesty stand not fast on that point the marriage will never take place.' She said that she herself was in danger if Arran learnt that she had told this secret to Sadlier, and she would still continue to feign opposition to the English marriage. But she rather incautiously showed her hand by suggesting that the Cardinal, if he were released, would side with England. This was too much for Sadlier, who gruffly rejoined that ' the Cardinal would do more hurt than good, for he had no affection towards England.' She indignantly denied the current rumours that she was to marry the Earl of THE POSSESSION OF MARY 19 Lennox. She had been a king's wife, she said, and her heart was too high to look any lower. Her hatred and fear of Arran blazed out again and again. Would that her child were in Henry's hands, or anywhere, rather than at the mercy of the next heir to her throne. ' And he (Arran) said, quoth she, that the child was not like to live, but you shall see whether he saith true or not, and therewith she caused me to go with her to the chamber where the child was, and shewed her unto me, and also caused the nurse to unwrap her out of her clothes that I might see her naked. I assure your Majesty, it is as goodly a child as I have seen of her age, and as like to live, with the Grace of God.' And so, at the age of four months, Mary Stuart made her first conquest. Hardly was Sadlier out of earshot when Mary of Guise tearfully prayed Sir George Douglas to help her in preventing her child from being carried to England. Well might Sadlier write to his King, as he did on the next day, that there was ' some jugglery here,' which he would try to fathom. Arran, when sounded, vehe- mently protested his faithfulness towards England, and his approval of the marriage. He cared, he said, nothing for France, so long as he had Henry's friend- ship, and the Cardinal was in safe keeping. 1 Besides, he protested, if he had been so minded he might easily have passed in parliament a resolution to marry Mary to his son. No man would have said him nay, and he was aggrieved that Henry should doubt him, for he had had ' mickle cumber among the Kirk men for 1 Aran's falsity is Beat >n wai already partially at liberty, being only confined in his own castle oi St. Andrews, and soon to i» tored to the R< .,'"<> by Arran'i voluntary act, ;ts mil be seen. 2o LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY his sake.' Even Sadlier believed that Arran would if he were able adopt the reformed doctrines officially in Scotland. But for all his efforts the English agent could make no way with Scots, even with Angus and his brother Douglas, towards the abduction and delivery of Mary to the keeping of her great-uncle Henry, who thereupon began to threaten an attack by arms, unless the promises of the Scottish nobles were kept. Henry, indeed, with less than his usual foresight, was inclined to believe the Queen-Mother's professions rather than those of his own friends the Douglases ; and the practical release of Beaton, and Huntly's suggestion to remove Mary and her mother to Stirling, aroused his ire against Arran to the highest pitch, notwithstanding the Regent's canting professions of Protestantism and demands for Testaments. Arran swore most solemnly to Sadlier that the Queen-Mother was a true Frenchwoman, and that she had belied him in her attempt to injure him in Henry's eyes. If he had desired to marry Mary to his son, he said, not a nobleman in Scotland would have opposed him. Indeed, at one time he had had such an idea, but the return of the prisoners from England with the offer of the marriage with Edward had caused him to change his mind. Some days afterwards the Queen- Dowager had her turn with Sadlier, and declaimed just as loudly against the falsity of Arran as the latter had against her. He had told her, she said, that he would rather die than deliver Mary to the English. He was just fooling the King of England for his own ends, and she it was who alone desired the marriage and upbringing of her child in England. ' And greatly she feared the surety of the child (in Scotland), for MARY OF GUISE AND ARRAN 21 she heard so many tales that the governor would convey her to a strong house of his own, where she should be altogether in his hands.' ' So that I per- ceive,' continues Sadlier, ' she is in fear of her de- struction, and I therefore wished her in England, which the Queen also wished for her part, saying that she would then be in her friends' hands out of all danger.' Nothing can be more certain than that it was furthest from the Queen-Mother's design to hand her child over to England. She was an astute states- woman, and in constant communication with her father, uncle, and brothers, whose interests were largely con- cerned in the maintenance of French influence and Catholicism in Scotland ; and the education of Mary in the schismatical court of Henry would have been a deathblow to their hopes in that respect. It is clear to see that her attempts to draw Henry into a point- blank demand for the immediate surrender of Mary, which she knew that Arran and the lords dared not grant, in the face of the Church, the Catholic nobles, and the people, were intended to precipitate a rupture which should give a pretext for French intervention, and perhaps prevent Henry from aiding the Emperor in the coming campaign. On the other hand, Henry's best friends, such as the Douglases, Glencairn, Maxwell, and others, could only counsel prudence and patience. The Regent Arran, they said, feared that if Mary were sent to England ' she would never die,' or rather that if she did another child would be substituted for her, so that, in any case, Henry might be master of Scot- land. If, said Maxwell, Henry was not content to let Mary remain in Scotland for the present, then he must 22 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY come and take her by force. ' By God's body,' quoth he, ' if his Majesty will prosecute it, there is no doubt but that he shall obtain it, for the realm is not able to withstand his power.' In vain Sadlier reproached the Scottish ex-prisoners for their failure to keep their promise. They could not, they said, go against all the realm ; and their countrymen were determined not to let their Queen go. In the meanwhile the Cardinal was set free, and Lennox had without opposition landed in Scotland, with gold and Frenchmen, and held his strong castle of Dumbarton. Rumours came that they, with their Scottish sympathisers, would attempt the seizure of the infant, and it was clear that if Arran adhered to their party the English cause in Scotland was lost. Henry urged the removal of the child to Edinburgh Castle, but that was too near England to suit Arran, and he found excuses for non-compliance. It will be seen here that many cross-currents were influencing events, over and above the main stream of policy which tended to the winning of Scotland from the French and Catholic connection to that of England and Protestantism. There were the innumerable family feuds which divided the Scottish nobles, the ambition of the Guise family, the pretensions respec- tively of Arran and Lennox to the heirship of the crown, the impatient character of Henry, and the zeal of religionists on both sides ; but for the moment the crucial point at issue was the possession of the six- months-old bairn, now jealously guarded in Linlith- gow Palace by her mother and the nobles appointed by parliament. The figure in the turmoil which excites most sympathy, in view of the documents now before us, is that of Arran. There was a general tendency MARY TO MARRY EDWARD 23 at the time and since to regard him as a poor, simple, shifty creature, as he certainly became later, but a consideration of the difficulties of his position at this time, and the manner in which he faced them, should do something to rehabilitate his memory. His part was a hard one. He knew that Scotland was too weak to withstand the force of England, whilst he also saw that with Mary in Henry's hands his own chance of the heirship was gone. The Cardinal, the Queen- Mother, and the Catholics were strong in the country, and so were the Douglases and the ' English ' lords. The domination of the former would have meant at that time the triumph of Lennox, and the ruin of Arran and the Hamilton interest, whilst the complete victory of Henry would have been equally disastrous to them. So Arran temporised as well as he might, even in the face of the great bribe held out to him of little Elizabeth Tudor's hand for his son. The Scottish ambassadors in England found Henry still wrathfully insistent upon the immediate delivery of the child-queen who was to marry his son, and the complete abandonment of the French connection by Scotland. Arran dared not consent, and summoned the nobles to Edinburgh. Even Lennox attended, and was nominally reconciled to his deadly foe Angus; and the whole assembly adopted a new set of proposi- tions to be submitted to England by the Earl of Glencairn and Sir George Douglas, both English partisans. After infinite bickering, and suspicions, a treaty for the marriage of Mary Stuart and Edward Tudor, with peace between the two realms, was signed at Greenwich on the 1st July 1543, by which the bride was to be delivered to the English at 24 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY the age of ten years, and married to the prince when she was twelve, hostages in the meanwhile being given to England for the fulfilment of the treaty. But still Henry was uneasy. Lennox refused to deliver Dumbarton, and Stirling was held against the Regent by Erskine ; the Cardinal was still at liberty to plot against Protestantism, and Arran, as usual, was endeavouring to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. News came to Henry, even, that Sir George Douglas and his brother Angus would rally to the Cardinal at the persuasion of Argyle ; there were rumours on the Border that the Humes and Scotts were mustering to raid the English marches, and worst of all, the Cardinal, with Huntly and his friends, were preparing forces to seize Mary at Linlithgow. But once more a hollow reconciliation was patched up, and a meeting of nobles summoned to ratify the English treaty. Henry was still shrewdly suspicious that an attempt would be made to convey Mary out of the country, and assembled his forces on the Border, in order to invade Scotland at the first moment that the Catholic party seemed aggressive. 1 Mary of Guise, who was really in the thick of the plot, sought again to reassure the English ambassador. Sadlier saw her at Stirling 1 He had ample cause for suspicion even thus early. The copy of a pledge taken by the Cardinal and his adherents when they were at Linlithgow (24th July), to prevent Mary's removal to England, was sent to England by Sadlier on the 10th August. This pledge was signed by several of the ex-prisoners who had been ostensibly favourable to English influence, and though Arran solemnly denied that he knew of it, subse- quent events would seem to render his statement doubtful. Mary was removed to Stirling on the 26th July, and a month afterwards Henry's brother-in-law, Suffolk, was instructed to hold himself in readiness on the Border to invade Scotland with 16,000 or 20,000 men. — Hamilton Papers, vol. ii. THE TREATY WITH ENGLAND 25 on the 20th August 1543, and she assured him that she was as faithful as ever to the English connection. She was the more confident now that her daughter had been released by the convention of lords from the power of Arran, and placed in the safe custody of the nobles appointed by the parliament to guard her. Arran, she continued to assert, was the real villain of the piece, and she alone was the friend of England, desiring nothing better for her daughter than her conveyance to England, and her marriage with Edward. When Sadlier spoke slightingly of the Catholic lords, however, she stood up for them stoutly, and said that they opposed Arran only in the interest of the safety of their sovereign lady. Her daughter, she said, ' grew apace, and would soon be a woman, if she took after her mother,' Mary of Guise herself being very tall ; and she showed Sadlier the child, ' who is right fair and goodly for her age.' * And thus the intrigue grew. Arran himself went to St. Andrews ostensibly to reconcile the Cardinal to the ratification of the treaty. The Churchman sulked and refused to meet him, and was at once proclaimed a traitor by Arran. Both sides flew to arms, but the Cardinal's party had the start, and Arran could only pray for aid, which Henry was too suspicious of him to grant. But in the meantime the war between France and England at sea had actually commenced, and relations became more bitter every day. The Scots treaty with England had been confirmed at Uolyrood on the 25th August, and the Laird of Fyvie was sent to England to obtain Henry's ratifica- tion ; but Scottish opinion was now strongly suspicious 1 Calendar, Htnry I'lll., vol. xviii. pt. 2, |>. 11. 26 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY of Arran's subservience to England. Scottish ships under French convoy had been captured at sea, and the whole country was straining in the leash to pre- serve its independence. Arran at length, beset by Henry's haughty demands on the one hand and the Cardinal's defiance on the other, bent his head before the storm and betrayed his paymaster. On the 3rd September he fled from Edinburgh and joined the Cardinal at Falkirk, near Stirling, where a general reconciliation took place with Huntly, Lennox, Mur- ray, Argyle, and Bothwell. There, in the ancient castle on the rock, he bent his knee before the Church- man. He had been forced to act as he had done, he said, by the King of England, who had urged him to despoil the Church and sack the monasteries. In humble contrition he undertook to deliver all the strong places to the Cardinal, but the solemn ban of the Church was pronounced upon him for his past impiety. The next day, Saturday, Arran did penance for his sins before the friars of Stirling, promising never to offend again. Then taking the sacrament he was formally absolved, and delivered all effective power to the triumphant Cardinal Beaton. 1 On the morning of Sunday, nth September 1543, Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland in the chapel of Stirling Castle, ' with such solemnity as they do use in this country, which is not very costly.' Arran bore the crown before the infant, his rival Lennox the sceptre, and Argyle the sword of state. Thus Mary of Guise had so far won the day, for she knew now that her child would never marry an English prince. Henry was furious at the trick that had been played 1 Hamilton Papers, vol. ii. THE TRIUMPH OF BEATON 27 upon him. Let Douglas and his friends seize the Queen by force, he urged ; but, above all, let them watch that she was not spirited away to France, and another babe put in her place. ' The falsehood of the world is such, and the compasses such of that Cardinal and the Queen-Dowager, as if things be not specially foreseen and provided for in time, they will grow to further inconvenience.' 1 But Stirling was strong, and with the doubtful exception of the Douglases, Scots- men were determined that their Queen should remain where she was, and the Dowager rarely lost sight of her child for an hour. Affairs went from bad to worse. French ships, with men, arms, and money came to Lennox at Dum- barton ; legates brought powers to raise ecclesiastical subsidies in Scotland, and the Pope's blessing to the Cardinal ; and notwithstanding the studied moderation of the latter towards England, it was made quite clear to Henry that he did not intend to hold by the treaty of marriage and alliance. The only remedy that Henry could readily suggest was the forcible seizure of the Cardinal himself, which in the circumstances was quite impracticable. The presence of the French ambassador La Brosse, and of the papal legate Grimani, was particularly disconcerting to the English party. Grimani was nearly kidnapped by Angus, at Glasgow, and escaped to Stirling in disguise before dawn one morning, warned just in time by a messenger from Mary of Guise. The treaty with England was obviously crumbling, and the two countries rapidly drifting into war. All Scotland, but a few Douglas adherents, were in favour of friendship with France ; 1 Hamilton I'n/rr<, vol. ii. 28 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY and SadJier himself was in hourly danger, though hidden away in the strong Angus castle of Tan- tallon. But for no great length of time was it possible for Lennox and Arran to be on the same side. The King of England had much to offer, and though Lennox had come to Scotland with the French influence at his back, he was willing to throw his weight on to the other scale if the English king would give him his niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Angus and Margaret Tudor, Queen-Dowager of Scotland, for his wife, and grant him a revenue similar to that which he would lose in France. 1 Whilst this intrigue was still in progress, the Cardinal's parliament met in Edinburgh (nth December 1543) and declared that as Henry had not ratified the treaty within the stipulated time, the agreement made with England was at an end. Nor was this all. Jacques de la Brosse and Jacques de Mesnaige, councillor of the parliament of Rouen, were welcomed by the assembled nobles as representatives sent by Francis 1. to request a renewal of the ancient alliance between France and Scotland ; Cardinal Beaton and his friends being authorised by the parliament to conclude an agree- ment with them. On the 15th December 1543 the 1 A counter intrigue to this was started by the Cardinal (November 1 543)>' n order to seduce Lennox from the English connection. It was proposed that Arran should divorce his wife and marry Mary of Guise ; and, whilst remaining nominally Regent, should hand the real power to Lennox, who was to be betrothed to the infant Mary : * And so they shall be friends and join together as one party with France against England.' The proposal was probably never anything but a feint ; but, patriotism apart, it was obviously less favourable to Lennox than his immediate marriage with a beautiful bride of full age, well dowered, and in near succession to the crown of England (Hamilton Papers, vol. ii.). NEW FRENCH ALLIANCE 29 new treaty with France was signed, and Scotland once again threw in her lot with her old friend and defied her ancestral enemy. Notwithstanding the attempts of the Scots still to temporise with Henry by suggesting that Mary's marriage with the Prince of Wales might after all take place when the children grew to fit age ; x and the French suggestions to the Emperor that they were prepared, and able, to divert Henry from his alliance with Charles, by causing Mary and her mother to be conveyed to England with the support of Guise, 2 it was quite obvious to the English king that he would have to crush Scotland by force before he could safely send his troops across the sea to join his ally in con- quering France. Hertford's sanguinary invasion of Scotland by sea was therefore effected in the spring. Arran and the Cardinal, taken by surprise, were beaten and put to flight between Leith and Edinburgh early in May. 3 The Scottish capital made such terms as it might with the conqueror, but was pillaged and ravaged, as was Leith ; and all the country round was wasted by fire and sword. The two principal Scottish ships of war were captured in harbour, and then Hertford and his army, leaving Scotland bleeding and powerless for harm, but wellnigh united now in indignation against England, returned home, ready to lend to the Emperor their aid in overrunning France. Lennox, almost alone of the Scottish nobles, 1 Spanish State Papers, Henry Fill., vol. vii. p. 34.. - Ibid. p. 60. _ 3 Full accounts or the engagement, from Hertford and Russell, are in Spanish State Papers, vol. vih. (now in the press). The Cardinal, we are told, appeared upon the field dn sed in a frock of yellow velvel slashed and puffed with white spangled silk ( <• also Hamilton Papers, and Teulet (Bannatyne Club), Papters d'Etat)., 3 o LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY now sided with England ; for even George Douglas was said to be ' thick with the Cardinal ' ; and the young earl was betrothed to Lady Margaret Douglas, Henry's niece, in June, binding himself thenceforward to hold his person and his castles at Henry's orders. But he undertook something more important still : namely, that he would ' travail to the uttermost of his wit and power to get her (Mary's) person into his own keep- ing, and so deliver her forthwith into his Highness' hands with all diligence possible, to be nourished and educated at his Majesty's order.' x The child herself had been conveyed to Dunkeld when Hert- ford and his troops had approached Stirling, and there, under the watchful care of her mother, she grew and throve, whilst Scotland, nominally at war with England and the Emperor, could only look on at the contest and pray tor the victory of her friends the French. Whilst Henry was still at war (January 1545) news came to him that the Governor (Arran), the Cardinal, and the other lords, had agreed to give their Queen to the French king to marry, and had signed and sealed a bond to send both queens into France next spring, 2 and Henry retaliated by constant forays across the Border. More than once Arran sent to the Emperor to beg for the inclusion of Scotland in his peace with France, and to Francis pleading for aid to withstand English attacks, or the Scots would after all be obliged to come to terms with England. 3 Montgomerie (M. de L'Orges) was sent 1 Rymer, xv. 2 Hamilton Papers, vol. ii. 3 Spanish State Papers, vol. viii. (in the press), and Diurnall of Occurrents. BEATON MURDERED 31 from France to Dumbarton with a small force ; but Francis had his hands full, 1 and could not effectually protect his ally, Hertford's destructive raids in Scot- land continuing unchecked throughout the autumn, with the assistance of the foreign mercenaries recruited for the purpose. In these circumstances Arran and many of the Scots lords began to waver again. 'There is no talk of a great war between the English and the Scots : on the contrary it looks as if there was some sort of con- nivance between them. The Scots will not move unless money from France causes them to do so, for they much prefer to receive French aid in money rather than men ' ; 2 and fresh hints were thrown out of a marriage between Mary and Arran's heir. ' In good truth it appears to be the most probable arrange- ment, for the Scots love to be ruled by their own countrymen rather than by a foreigner. Besides which, such a marriage would probably avoid the danger that the son referred to might at some future time raise opposition to the princess, he being a very near heir to the crown. However, as the girl is an infant, matters may change.' 3 They did change, and promptly. Cardinal Beaton was murdered at St. Andrews at the end of May 1546, whilst yet the peace negotiations between Henry and Francis were in progress ; and Arran, to his secret satisfaction, found himself relieved of the burden of a coadjutor more powerful than himself, whilst Henry could 1 So hardly driven was Francis, that he was forced to strike a special debased coinage oi 1 50,000 crown to tend to Scotland 10 pay t lie troops tit' 11 thither by Montgomerie [Spanish Stat* Papers, vol. viii. p. 147, in the press). ■ UnJ. * //,,;/. r- LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY hardly be expected to look with disapproval upon an act which had removed from his path the strongest Scotsman who favoured France and the papacy. But the murder of the Cardinal also banished any lingering hope that might be entertained by Arran of securing the hand of Mary for his own son, because with the disappearance of the only man who could present Scotland with a united front to speak for herself, the disposal of the young Queen in marriage became a pawn to be used in the diplomatic contest between England and France. There had been a talk of marrying Prince Edward to a niece of the Emperor; and to counteract any such idea Francis undertook, as a part of the peace stipulations with Henry, to promote the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Mary Stuart. That he ever intended to do so is in the highest degree improbable. When, indeed, Henry became too pressing about it, saying that the stipula- tion was in fact an agreement that the marriage should take place, Francis replied that he did not look upon it in that light, as the child was too young yet to speak for herself ; and French emissaries were sent to Scotland to consult Arran, and obtain from him a confirmation of the French view. To the annoyance of Francis, Arran and his Council replied that they submitted the matter entirely to him. ' He had expected another answer, but in the face of it he could not avoid making a promise that when the Princess of Scotland reached a proper age he would do his best to incline her to such a marriage. The people here (Paris), Sire, insist that these promises do not bind them to anything, but even they confess that the King of England will endeavour to hold them to the con- RENEWED WAR IN SCOTLAND 33 dition.' * So uneasy was Francis at the situation into which he had been forced, that he obtained for Mary of Guise assurance from Rome that any pledge she might be obliged to take in the name of her infant daughter for the marriage of the latter with the English prince could be subsequently nullified. With infinite humiliation on the part of the Scots, Henry, almost on his deathbed, granted to them their nominal inclusion in the peace treaty with France ; but aggression never ceased on the Border, and the distrust of Arran's hobnobbing with France increased. The murderers of Beaton still held the castle of St. Andrews against the Regent Arran ; and, whether Henry was an accomplice of the crime or not, he powerfully aided the criminals with means to defy Arran. The latter had his reasons to rejoice at the disappearance of Beaton, but his own heir was held by the murderers in St. Andrews, and their contempt of his authority with English connivance, together with the violent reproaches of Mary of Guise, spurred him into an attempt to capture the place by siege. On Henry's death Somerset was as anxious as the King had been to secure Mary for his nephew Edward ; and knowing that a great French force was being sent by sea to Scotland, he, too, mustered his army with a large number of foreign mercenaries to enforce the treaty for Mary's marriage. Before he took the field the French army had landed, captured St. Andrews, and levelled the fortress to the ground (August 1547), and once more England and France joined issue on Scottish ground for the possession of their exhausted quarry. 1 Spanish State Papers, Henry VllL, vol. viii. (in the puss). C 34 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Somerset's inept three weeks' rush into Scotland, and his chance victory at Musselburgh (Pinkey), which he failed to follow up effectively, only drew the Scots and French closer together. Young Mary was hurried away to safety at beautiful Inchmahome, in the middle of September, a few days after Pinkey was fought ; * but intrigue was still resorted to for the purpose of capturing her, since it was seen to be im- possible by English force alone. The Scottish lords, with Sir George Douglas at their head, were ready, one after the other, to hold their itching palms for English bribes, to haggle for maintenance and high marriages in England, and to suggest plans for the seizure of their Queen ; but those who were not false in their offers were unable to fulfil them. Whilst the five-year-old child was planting her gardens and plying her needle, all unconscious of the plotting for her dainty little body, Mary of Guise was striving her utmost to turn to the advantage of the French connec- tion the present hatred of the Scots against England arising out of Somerset's invasion. Early in November, only seven weeks after the battle of Pinkey, a meeting of nobles in Stirling discussed the desirability of sending Mary to France ; and in January i 548 Arran finally burnt his boats and embraced the French cause. He bound himself to summon a parliament which should consent to the marriage of Mary with the infant Dauphin Francis, to send the bride at once to France to be brought up, and to surrender to the French king the Scottish fortresses to hold in gage. For this Arran was to be protected and favoured, and to be made a French duke. The 1 Bishop of Ross's History of Scotland (Bannatyne Club). MARY BETROTHED TO FRANCIS 35 Queen-Mother still worked hard in winning nobles to her cause, and when the parliament was assembled early in July at a nunnery outside Haddington, in the midst of the besieging French army under Marshal D'Esse, there was no dissentient voice raised to the French demands for the marriage and custody of the little Queen. Mary was at the time safe in Dum- barton Castle, and no time was lost in making pre- parations for her deportation. Whilst the French fleet from the Forth was cleverly evading Somerset's cruisers by sailing round the north of Scotland to Dumbarton, Mary of Guise travelled from Hadding- ton to bid farewell to her child. As she left the besieging camp she stood for a moment at the back of the nunnery to gaze upon the town, when the English gunners getting their range, a tempest of cannon-shot fell upon her party, killing many of her courtiers by her side. 1 Swooning with emotion and sorrow, she pursued her way to the west. With such state and splendour as Scotland could afford Mary was surrounded during the last days she was to spend as a child in her own realm. The two lords who had hitherto protected her so well, Erskine and Livingstone, were still with her and Lady Fleming her step-aunt, who had cared for her education so far. Many girls and boys of about her own age, daughters and sons of Scottish nobles, formed her juvenile court, and especially four young Maries, Fleming, Living- stone, Seton, and Beaton, were her maids and constant companions. Two at least of her bastard half-brothers accompanied her on her voyage : Robert Stuart, Abbot of Holyrood, and his younger brother the Prior of 1 Hamilton Papers, vol. ii. 36 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Coldingham ; but the eldest James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrews, who so profoundly influenced her after- life, remained with another brother for a time longer in Scotland. 1 In the splendidly appointed galley of the King of France, thus gaily attended, tiny Mary Stuart, with her dazzling fair skin and her shining yellow hair, sweet and demure, we are told, in her baby grace, sailed out of the Clyde in the first days of August 1548, the betrothed bride of the heir of France. She was not yet six years old, but already she had been thrice disposed of in marriage : to Edward Tudor, to James Hamilton, and to Francis de Valois, in addition to the several less formal suggestions that had been brought forward for her hand. 2 Her realm, it was even thus early seen, was to be the poise whose shifting or stand- ing should decide the final balance of European power, disturbed by the Reformation. The disposal of the little Queen by one or the other of the rivals was regarded, according to the ideas of the time, as to a great extent the disposal of the nation whose nominal head she was. What some of the wisest of contem- porary statesmen failed as yet to see, was that in the proportion that free religious inquiry upon which the Reformation rested became stronger, the power of the sovereign to dispose of the thoughts and lives of subjects dwindled. France seemed when Mary Stuart sailed in the King's galley to have won the 1 Hamilton Papers, vol. ii. Henry Jones to Somerset, 9th August 1548. The same writer says : ' The old Queen doth lament the young Queen's departure, and marvels that she heareth nothing from her. 1 It is difficult to see how she could have heard so soon, as the squadron can hardly have sailed more than a day or two before. 2 The Earls of Lennox and Kildare, a Danish prince, etc. MARY SENT TO FRANCE 37 game, and to hold Scotland thenceforward in the hollow of her hand, because Mary was to be Catholic and French. But with John Knox thundering for freedom from the Roman harlot, and with English gold encouraging Scottish religious emancipation and impatience of restraint, the symbol remained in the hand of France, but the reality slipped away. CHAPTER II MARY'S EARLY YEARS IN FRANCE Mary and her grandmother — Her education — Mary as a factor in French politics — Mary as a child — Cardinal Lorraine's care of her — His influ- ence on her character — Her Latin letters — A separate household given her — Diane de Poictiers and Catharine de Medici — Suggested marriage with Courtnay — Brantome's description of Maiy at fifteen years — Ron- sard's and Du Bellay's poems — Description of the Dauphin Francis — His love for Mary — The tone of the French court — Mary's betrayal of Scotland at her marriage — Description of the wedding — Progress of affairs in Scotland — Catholic alliance between France and Spain. The foot of Mary Stuart first touched the soil of France on the 14th August, at the little port of RoscofT, in Brittany. 1 Escorted by a body of the famous Scots guard of the kings of France, the little Queen slowly travelled from chateau to chateau, by Morlaix and Nantes, to Saint Germain-en-Laye, being met on the way thither by her grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, Duchess of Guise, whom Henry 11. had requested to organise the household and education of the little stranger. The letters of the staid old Duchess to her daughter, Mary of Guise, on the occasion, sound a human note that rings true across the centuries, and tells us more than reams of diplo- 1 Many authorities give Brest as the place, but for several reasons I con- sider that the balance of proof is in favour of Roscoff, where a chapel to commemorate the event was soon afterwards erected, the ruins of which still exist. 88 MARY IN FRANCE 39 matic correspondence would do. The Duchess writes on the 3rd September 1548 : 'I was more glad than I can say to learn of the arrival of our little Queen in as good health as you could wish her to have. I pity the sorrow that I think you must have felt during her voyage, and I hope you had news of her safe arrival, and also the pain that her departure must have caused you. You have had so little joy in the world, and pain and trouble have been so often your lot, that methinks you hardly know now what pleasure means. But still you must hope that this absence and loss of your child will at least mean rest and repose for the little creature, with honour and greater welfare than ever before, please God. I hope to see you yet some- times before I die. . . . But believe me, in the mean- while I will take care that our little Queen shall be treated as well as you can desire for her. I am starting this week, God willing, to meet her and conduct her to St. Germain, with the Dauphin. 1 shall stay with her there for a few days to arrange her little affairs, and until she grows somewhat used to the Dauphin and his sisters. 1 Lady Fleming,' the Duchess continues, ' will, if the King allows it, remain with the child, as she knows her ways ; and Mademoiselle Curel will take charge of her French education. Two gentlemen and other attendants are to be appointed to wait upon the little Queen, and her dress and appoint- ments shall be fitting to her rank.' Mary arrived in France at a favourable time for female education. The new learning for ladies, that 1 Balcarrei Papers. The Dauphin, oi 1 se, was the child Francis, tined husband of Mary, and the two pri Blizab th, afterwards third wife oi Philip u., and Claude, afterwards Duchess of Lorraine. 4 o LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY had become fashionable throughout Europe, found its noblest centre in the court of Francis i. and Henry n. ; and the great movement that gave to England such erudite ladies as Queen Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey, Lady Bacon, and Lady Cecil, gave to France the elder Princess Margaret de Valois, Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara, Jeanne D'Albret, Mary Stuart, and her fellow-pupils the Princesses Elizabeth and Claude. It is certain that the most scrupulous care was exercised to educate Mary worthily. She was surrounded in the convent where she and her fellow-princesses were taught, for the first few months of her life in France, by gentle and wise influences alone ; and later, when she lived with the other royal children in Henry's court, no laxity of conduct or coarseness of speech was allowed before her. That the tone of French society at the time was as licentious as well could be, and that the influence of the Queen, Catharine de Medici, where it could be exerted, was likely to be a bad one, is unquestionable ; but Catharine was powerless for harm until after her husband's death, and at least an appearance of propriety and devotion was kept up at court until that event happened. 1 Mary's great ally and protectress, Diane de Poictiers, Henry's powerful mistress, even, was outwardly most jealous in preserv- ing her dignity ; and though Mary may have learnt her crooked political and diplomatic methods from her uncles Guise and Cardinal Lorraine, and their great rival Catharine, it is most unlikely that any moral influences but those of almost stilted propriety were 1 In support of this opinion, it may be mentioned that both Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, and Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, her school-fellows, were paragons of propriety, whilst their younger sister Margaret was just the reverse. EARLY EDUCATION 41 allowed to touch her in her most impressionable years. The Duchess of Guise thus writes to Mary's mother a few months after the little Queen had arrived in France : ' It is impossible for her to be more honoured than she is. She and the King's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, live together, and I think that this is a great good thing, for they are thus brought up to love each other as sisters. It is not enough to say that they do not trouble each other in the least, for she (Mary) never works at night or sleeps in the day- time, and is very playful and pretty, and the two children are as fond as they can be of each other's company. They are always well accompanied, and are often in the Queen's chamber, so that nothing could be desired better for her than she has. Do not believe people who write falsely to you to the contrary, for they often complain without reason, and would prefer to have separate habitations, so that they might live as they pleased, which certainly would not be to the advantage of the little Queen, your daughter.' That Mary's literary education, even in these early years, was carefully conducted, is evident from the accomplishments she possessed. Brantome says that she knew Latin well, and at the age of thirteen declaimed an essay in Latin before the King and Queen, advo- cating the higher education of women. Her French, says the same authority, was more elegant than if she had been born in France. She played well on the cither, the harp, and the harpsichord. 1 Icr dancing and grace of movement were eulogised, as well as her horsemanship; 1 and after allowing for all the exag- 1 Jebb (Conseus). 42 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY geration of courtiers and poets, it is undoubted that Mary was well taught, and an apt pupil. Her hardest lessons were probably those which schooled her to the trade of royalty : to control the demonstration of emotion, to recite by rote grave commonplaces to ambassadors and visitors, and to listen patiently to addresses beyond the comprehension of a child. 1 The fact of their superiority and power was for ever kept before the eyes of infant royalties, and such a system usually succeeded in crushing out of the unhappy little creatures all youthful spontaneity long before they reached adolescence. That it did not result in making the woman Mary Stuart a prig, as it did most other great ladies of the day, including to some extent her companion, Elizabeth de Valois, is a proof of her strong natural character and marked individuality, but it certainly encouraged her hereditary pride, and the overweening sense of sacredness of sovereignty which contributed largely to the causes of her ultimate ruin. Scotland for centuries had been a piece in the hands of France to checkmate England when needful, and to prevent a hostile coalition between the latter power and the rulers of Spain or Flanders ; but, with the spread of the newer ideas of religion in France, the latter country itself developed divisions, and Scotland became for a time not only the sliding makeweight on the international balance, but an active factor in the 1 If we are to take literally the account of Conseus (in Jebb), the child of eight years, when taken to Rouen with the court to receive her mother, Mary of Guise, in 1550, replied to the Queen-Dowager's maternal em- braces by inquiring : ' What factions continued to subsist in the noble families of Scotland, at the same time inquiring byname for those who had evinced most attachment to the ancient faith. She then proceeded to ask, with all the usual expressions of royal benevolence, whether the English still harassed her native country; whether worship remained pure, and the prelates and clergy did their duty.' RELIGIOUS PARTIES IN FRANCE 43 internal politics of France. The house of Lorraine had, from the birth of the anti-papal movement in Europe, been foremost in their championship of the traditional claims of the Church ; and the French branch of the house represented by Duke Claude, and afterwards by the Dukes Francis and Henry and their brothers, naturally espoused the same side, which, in Paris at least, was also the popular one. The appear- ance of the Guises as French princes, allied by marriage with the royal house and claiming their privileges to the full, naturally aroused resentment in the house of Bourbon, princes of the blood, whose claim had previously been unrivalled ; whilst their ostentatious pushing of the papal cause, with obviously ambitious aims of their own, was also displeasing both to those great nobles who had for so long been para- mount in the state, the Montmorencis, and their kinsmen the Chatillons, and to the not inconsiderable number who had imbibed some sympathy for the new ideas of religious reform. The devout and decorous concubine, Diane de Poictiers, sided with the Guises ; and naturally the neglected Queen Catharine de Medici favoured the opposite party, biding her time when she might deal a blow at the Guise and pro- Catholic faction, whose aggrandisement she knew meant her own enfeeblement. The marriage of the King of Scots to Mary of Guise had been a great stroke of policy for the bride's family, and the aid subsequently sent to Scotland by France had been opposed bitterly, and minimised as much as possible by the parties at court who were jealous of the rise of Guisan influence. The betrothal of the infant Mary to the Dauphin, and her deportation, had been similarly combated ; but 44 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Diane de Poictiers was all-powerful with Henry u., and she and the Guises had their way in spite of Catharine and the Montmorencis. It will be seen, therefore, that whilst Mary was still a child she was the centre of a great intrigue in French home politics, as well as being a precious international pledge ; and the visit of her mother to France in September 1550, for a year, was avowedly for the purpose of obtaining support for her claim to the Scottish regency, still nominally held by Arran (Duke of Chatelherault), with the object of carrying out more firmly than before the policy most conducive to the Guisan objects in France. By bribes and address she had won over a large party of the Scottish nobles to her views, and with ceaseless persistence pursued her aim until (in 1554) she was successful. That her openly French policy in Scotland was for a time accepted without protest, and the opponents in France itself of the Guise domination silenced, was owing greatly to the accession of the half-Spanish Mary Tudor to the throne of England, and her marriage with Philip ; such an alliance being, as usual, a signal for the close drawing together of France and Scotland on the old national lines that had existed before the opening of the Reformation. This was, however, but a passing phase, which disappeared when Elizabeth succeeded and pledged England to an anti-papal and nationally independent policy. This short digression has been necessary in order to show how many warring interests surrounded Mary, even in her childhood, and caused her future to be of greater importance to Christendom than that of any other woman of her time except Elizabeth Tudor. MARY'S CHILDHOOD IN FRANCE 45 They were not all friends, therefore, in France that approached the young Queen in her years of inno- cence. In 1 55 1 a plot was discovered to poison her by a Scotsman of her own name, whom some historians have without adequate proof sought to identify with an anonymous Scot, presumably a spy, who was sent to Mason, the English ambassador in France, by Edward's Council ; * but it does not appear probable, in the absence of positive evidence, that Somerset's government would at this period have run the risk of entering into such a murder-plot, by which, for some time at least, no great advantage could be gained by England. On the other hand, the interest of the Hamiltons in the early disappearance of Mary is obvious. In the meanwhile the child grew in beauty and precocity. The staid, dignified little letter written to her mother in 1552 " shows her direct initiative at several points. Her mother had charged her with secrecy upon certain matters, to which she replies : ' Je vous puis assurer, madame, que rien qui viendra de vous ne sera sceu par moy ' ; and with all seriousness she discusses the affairs submitted to her, though with many dutiful protestations of her humble obedience to the more mature judgment of her elders. It is evident, too, that her advisers in France were the Duke of Guise and Charles, Cardinal Lorraine, her uncles. She writes in this connection : ' I have shown the letters to my uncle Guise, as I thought you would wish me to do so ; although in view of the orders you send me I should not have shown them to any one, only I was afraid that I should not be able to under- 1 Calendar of Foreign State Papers, Edward. 2 LabanoflT, vol. i. p. 5. 46 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY stand them without his help. ... I would have written to you in cipher, but my secretary tells me it is not necessary yet.' She begs in the same letter that her servants may be better paid, and, evidently in obedience to the request of her mother, encloses two letters written separately with her own hand : ' so that you may be able to show that to my master without any one knowing that you have written to me about it.' This for a child of ten shows a precocious develop- ment, which, given natural ability, would be a likely result of the kind of training to which she was sub- mitted. The astute Cardinal Lorraine (the younger) evidently took pride in the progress of so apt a pupil as his niece. This is how he describes her in letters to her mother early in 1553, he having just accom- panied the King to Amboise on a visit to the royal children : ' She has grown so much, and grows daily in size, goodness, beauty, and virtue, 1 that she has become the most perfect and accomplished person in all honest and virtuous things that it is possible to imagine, either in gentle or simple rank. I can assure you that the King is so delighted with her that he passes much time talking with her, and for an hour together she amuses him with wise and witty dis- course as if she were a woman of twenty-five.' The whole family were to come to St. Germain, and young Francis was to be furnished with a separate household. In giving this news to his sister, Cardinal Lorraine shows the cloven hoof, and allows us to see his enmity 1 Writing shortly after this, the Venetian ambassador, Capello, reported that ' she is most beautiful (bellissima), and so accomplished that she inspires with astonishment every one who witnesses her acquirements. The Dauphin, too, is very fond of her, and finds great pleasure in her company and conversation ' (Relations des Ambassadeurs Venetiens). MARY'S CHILDHOOD IN FRANCE 47 towards the Queen Catharine de Medici. The latter, he says, will not allow her two elder daughters to have any separate household, but has decided to keep them close to her under her own control, c determined that whilst she lives, or they remain single, no one shall have any authority over them but herself.' The Cardinal then urges his sister to act in the same way towards Mary, namely, to appoint her household and governors for her, or in other words to withdraw her from the influence of Catharine. ' I pray you act strongly in this respect, and you will thus always have the more power over her ' ; and he sends to his sister a complete list of the persons he proposes to form Mary's household. ' Believe me, madame, she already possesses so high and noble a spirit that she shows great annoyance at seeing herself so poorly treated, and she is anxious to be free from this tutorship and to live in a dignified fashion.' x It may well be supposed that with such a preceptor as Cardinal Lorraine to influence Mary's natural pride, and to mould her a fit instrument for the Guise ends, there would be but little love between Catharine and the niece of her enemies. As we have seen, the two daughters of France who were Mary's schoolfellows were kept in close tutelage under the watchful eye of their mother, whilst Mary was in the enjoyment of a separate household paid by Scotland, and was surrounded by Scottish nobles and gentlemen. Thus attended, and with Cardinal Lorraine ever watchful, it was evident that Mary was protected at all points from the political influence of the Queen. If Conasus is to be believed, Mary, who with the rest of the royal family 1 Labanoft, vol. i. p. u. 48 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY spent some hours every afternoon in the Queen's presence-chamber, used to watch Catharine's every movement, and treasure up every word that fell from her lips, presumably in her precocious desire to learn and imitate how a queen should carry herself. Catharine asked her once why she preferred her company to that of her young companions, and Mary's courtly answer could not have deceived the wily Italian, who hated the child she knew was waiting under the tutelage of her foes to play the part of Queen of France as soon as Providence might decree. It was gall and wormwood for Catharine de Medici, but she took her vengeance to the full when her opportunity came. The pedantic, artificial, little Latin letters or exer- cises which at the age of about twelve years Mary addressed daily to Princess Elizabeth 1 show how con- stantly the child's thoughts dwelt upon the splendour of her destiny. The faulty construction and self- conscious tone of these curious documents add to their value, as showing that they were the genuine unaided production of Mary herself. Quoting Plutarch, who she says is a philosopher worthy of teaching a prince, she writes : ' He who counterfeits a prince's coin is punished : how much more severely should he be punished who corrupts a prince's mind : for, as Plato tells us, the people of a State are apt to take after their princes.' Again : ' The true grandeur of a prince, my dear sister, is not in splendour, nor in gold or fine purple, or rich gems and other pomps, but in prudence and wisdom : and just as a prince is different from his subjects in his dress and manner of living, so should 1 Latin Themes of Mary Stuart (Anatole de Montaiglon). MARY'S CHILDHOOD IN FRANCE 49 he differ from them in their foolish and vulgar ideas.' The next day Mary pursued the same line of thought. c The prince ought not to boast principally of the blazonry and signs of nobility he receives from his parents, but should seek first of all to imitate their virtues. That is the first thing ; the second is that a prince should be well taught in arts and sciences, and third and least is the painted blazonry of his ances- tors.' Amidst all this mass of prunes and prisms the natural little girl occasionally pushes through to the surface. Princess Claude had been naughty one day, insisting upon drinking excessively just before going to bed. The tutor had asked the elder sister Elizabeth to reprove her for it, but Elizabeth had frankly replied that she too wanted to drink before she went to bed. Mary Stuart, in her Latin theme at all events, was quite shocked at this. ' We should be examples to the people,' she wrote. ' How can we reprove others unless we ourselves are faultless ? A good prince must live in such sort that great and small may take example by his virtues.' Unfortunately for this high-sounding precept, Cardinal Lorraine, writing to his sister a few months previously, lets us see that Mary Stuart, even at twelve years old, was still human, notwithstanding her priggish copybook. ' It was good to see your daughter, who is in excellent health, better than ever. I am astonished that people should write to you that she is sickly. They must be ill-natured people, indeed, to say such a thing, for she was never better in her life, and the physicians say that, to judge from her constitution, she may, with God's blessing, live as long as any of her relatives. It is true that she has experienced at times some faint- D 5 o LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY ness, but this is only caused by her forgetting herself and eating too much. She has always a very good appetite, and if she had her way and ate as much as she liked, her stomach would often suffer for it. But I am having more care than ever taken of her way of life, and hope that we shall so well carry out the trust you have confided to us that her line shall be well continued. I scrupulously go through every apart- ment once a month myself, and inquire minutely into everything that is done ; and I take care to order that no stranger whatever is to be allowed to enter or frequent any of the offices ; and that all the officers carry out their duties properly.' * Mary thenceforward was nominally her own mistress, but really under the guardianship of the Cardinal ; and although possessing a separate household, still accom- panied the royal family in their daily life. Her correspondence with her mother at this period, whilst frequently showing the guiding hand of Lorraine, contains increasing signs of independent action on the part of Mary herself. The Earl of Huntly, to whom she and her house owed much, had asked for the reversion of some benefice or office, his petition apparently having been endorsed by the Queen- Regent Mary of Guise. Mary thereupon wrote to her mother : ' Please pardon me, and do not take in ill part if in the government of my realm I take example from the King (of France), who never grants a benefice to any one until the possessor thereof is dead.' 2 She begins also at this time to ask favours for her servants, and to show liking for some and repugnance to others. With her governess, Madame 1 Labanoff, vol. i. p. 21. 2 Ibid. MARY'S CHILDHOOD IN FRANCE 51 de Paroys, indeed, she seems to have had quite a serious quarrel about the distribution of her wardrobe, in which the governess thought she was not fairly treated ; and by numerous indications in the course of her correspondence it is evident that at the age of about thirteen or fourteen the result of Mary's training as a child-monarch had been to stamp indelibly upon her character the impression of her sovereign privileges and exalted destiny. She was now of an age, too, for the Guise interest to make capital out of her by using her authority to increase the French control over her country. Arran and the Scots nobles had been bribed wellnigh to their hearts' content, and meekly accepted the decision of the French parliament that Scotland should in future be governed in Mary's own name ; and in 1554 her decree making her mother Regent during her absence was confirmed in Edinburgh, whilst Knox and the growing party of reformers looked sourly on, knowing that with Catholic Mary Tudor on the English throne no help could come to them from that quarter. The Guises, indeed, were triumphing all along the line, and, as events turned out, their attempts to garner the harvest of their success too fast caused the downfall of their hopes. With her uncles and Diane de Poictiers Mary was upon terms of the closest friendship : ' And as for my uncle the Cardinal I say nothing (with regard to his kind- ness), for I am sure you already know. ... It is incredible how careful they all are for me.' 1 Belong- ing thus, as she did, to the party of her kinsmen and the concubine, Mary must necessarily have been on 1 Mary to her mother, 28th December 1555 (LabanorF, vol. i.). 52 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY terms of more or less polite antagonism with Catharine de Medici, although court etiquette brought them frequently together ; and it is not unlikely that at this period it was that the ill feeling between the two queens led to the taunt said to have been uttered by Mary to her prospective mother-in-law, that the latter was ' a merchant's daughter and would never be anything else.' 1 If it had been possible for the Queen with the Bourbons, the Montmorencis, and the Chatillons to upset the marriage treaty, which aided so much the glorification of the Guises, they would have done so ; and there is no lack of evidence that they tried. In April 1556 Cardinal Lorraine writes to his sister praising more than ever the good conduct of his niece, ' who is so good and virtuous that she could not behave better if she had a dozen governesses ' (instead of none) ; ' and . . . the King told me that he thought of having her married this winter, which no doubt he will do if you come, but I think not otherwise.' 2 Cardinal Lorraine told the Venetian ambassador somewhat later that the King was desirous of having the marriage hastened in order to put a stop to the proposals which on every opportunity were brought forward for marrying Mary elsewhere, and it may well be believed that between the rival intrigues of the Montmorencis and the Guises the weak Henry 1 Cardinal Santa Croce to the Pope, quoted by Cheruel : Catharine, however, a profound dissembler, who at this period made no open attempt to dominate, followed the lead of her husband in showing public con- sideration for Mary. Cardinal Lorraine writes (8th April 1556): 'lean assure you, madam (i.e. Mary of Guise), that there is nothing more virtuous or beautiful than your daughter, and she is very devout also. She quite governs the King and Queen.' In reality, as was afterwards made plain, Catharine was the last person in the world to allow a girl whom she hated to ' govern ' her ; but it was for the moment her policy to ' lie low. 1 2 The Cardinal to Mary of Guise (LabanofF, vol. i.). MARY'S CHILDHOOD IN FRANCE $3 was often perplexed. At one juncture (1556) the former family seemed likely to win the game. Francis de Montmorenci, son of the Constable, Henry's old and dearest friend, married the King's legitimated daughter, and the marriage of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin then trembled in the balance. A proposal was at once started to marry her to young Courtnay, who had been the native pretender for the hand of his cousin Mary Tudor previous to her marriage with Philip. The French pretext for the proposal was a plausible one, namely, that the efforts of Philip 11. to marry Princess Elizabeth Tudor to a nominee of his own threatened the permanent domination of England by the Spanish interest to the prejudice of France, and that the establishment of Courtnay as King-Consort of Scotland under French auspices would effectually put a stop to that danger. The promotion by the Guises of the new war in league with the Pope against Philip, both in Italy and Flanders, again cast the Montmorenci influence into the background ; and the crushing defeat and capture of the Constable at St. Quentin (August 1557), followed by Guise's brilliant campaigns in Italy, and afterwards in Picardy, raised the uncles of Mary Stuart to the highest pitch of power and favour. The Bishop of Ross tells us that the decision to hurry forward Mary's marriage was the direct result of the defeat of St. Quentin, as it was feared that in the event of France being badly beaten by Philip and the English, the Scottish parliament might withdraw their consent to the marriage. Another reason is given by the Venetian ambassador. He says that the com- pletion of the marriage would enable France to make 54 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY use of Scottish forces as a diversion against England in the following year's campaign. 1 In either case it is evident that the marriage of Mary at the particular period when it was effected was a move promoted by the Guises, in the first place to forward their own political aims, and, to a smaller extent, to serve what they considered French national interests. Mary Stuart was now over fifteen years of age, at a time when the fascination of her budding woman- hood first began to cast its spell over men. Brantome says : ' Her great beauty and virtue grew in such sort, that when she was about fifteen years old her loveli- ness began to shine in its bright noonday, and to shame the sun itself with its brilliance, so beautiful was she. ... It was good to hear her talk, both to the great and the humblest. Whilst she stayed in France she always devoted two hours each day to study and reading : and there was no science upon which she could not discourse well. Above all, she loved poetry and poets, especially M. de Ronsard, M. du Bellay, and M. de Maisonfleur, who all wrote beautiful poems for her, which I have often seen her read in France and in Scotland with tears in her eyes and sorrow in her heart. . . . Whenever she addressed any one she had a very sweet, fascinating, and pretty, yet dignified, way of speaking, and with a discreet and modest sort of familiarity and gentle gracefulness. . . . She had, too, this special perfection to enchant the world. She sang sweetly, accompanying herself on the lute with lovely hands, so finely fashioned that those of Aurora herself could not surpass them.' 2 1 Venetian Calendar, Sorzanzo to the Doge, 9th November 1557. 2 Brantome, Dames lllustres. THE DAUPHIN FRANCIS 55 The courtly poets, Ronsard especially, piled up their adjectives in her praise, to an extent, that if half they said of her was true, her place was amongst the angels rather than amongst the daughters of men. Her fair skin, her bright eyes, her lovely hand, and inimitable grace are sung in verses innumerable. Amongst them all, Du Bellay appears best to catch the secret of her charm, which must have lain in her general sym- pathetic attractiveness rather than in perfect beauty of particular features. 1 The tongue of Hercules, so fables tell, All people drew by triple chains of steel. Her simple glance where'er its magic fell, Made men her slaves, though none the shackles feel.' The boy Francis de Valois, to whom this wondrous young paragon was affianced, was but fourteen. A poor, bilious, degenerate weakling, stunted of figure and unprepossessing of face, but, young as he was, already devoted to the beautiful girl whom from his earliest years he had been taught to regard as his future wife. Throughout the correspondence of the time we find traces of his frequent illnesses, usually fevers and agues, which left the lad weak and exhausted after his recovery. He was shy and timid, as his father had been at a similar age, though less inclined to, or indeed capable of, manly exercises than he. He was as yet too young to have engaged actively in the vices of the outwardly brilliant and devout, but intensely immoral, court, but he appears to have been, nevertheless, fully alive to the desirability of his bride. 1 1 Brantomc says he was ' epcrdument (pris* of her. Even when they were both children (in 1548) Constable Montmorenci wrote to Mary of 56 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY What were Mary's feelings towards him at first it would be more difficult to say. 1 Familiarity with the idea of life-union with him, one of the two greatest marriageable princes in Europe of the time, must have accustomed her to any shortcomings in his appearance, whilst her pride cannot fail to have been flattered at the deference with which the Dauphin was surrounded, and the splendour of the destiny apparently reserved for him. She was now, moreover, at an age when, precocious as we have seen her to be, she could appreciate much of what was passing at court before her eyes, and of necessity must have regarded gallantry with lenient curiosity, if not with anticipation. The King, of whose virtues she heard so much, was living in unconcealed adultery with Mary's special patroness, a devout dame of high lineage, whose daughter's hand was sought by some of the proudest nobles in the land ; laxity of conduct, in such a court as that described by Brantome, must have been treated more as a joke than otherwise. Mary must have under- stood by this time that her aunt and governess was also the King's mistress, and that even her admired Guise: ' Je vous asseuray que Monseigneur le Dauphin en est soigneulx et amoureux come de s'amye et sa femme, et qu il est bien ayse a juger que Dieu les a faict naitre Tun pour 1 'autre. Je vous souhaict souvent ici pour les veoir ensemble.' 1 In the midst of the splendid turmoil of her wedding-day (24th April 1558) Mary found time to scribble a long, dutiful, and delighted letter to her mother (first printed by Mr. Hay Fleming in his Maty Stuart), in which she does not hide her triumphal happiness in her marriage. ' Je ne vous en diray rien, sinon que je m'estime l'une de plusheureuses fames du monde, pour avoir et le Roy et la Reine, et madame (i.e. Margaret), et messieurs et medames (in the Princes and Princesses of the blood) tant que je les sauroys souhaiter, et le Roy mon mari, me fait une estime comme telle que je veus vivre et mourir . . . (here follows a list of the beautiful presents made to her). Quant a messieurs mes oncles il n'est possible de me plus faire d'honneur et d'amitie qu'ils ont tous fait tant aises et contents que rien plus, et surtout monsieur le Cardinal mon oncle qui a eu la paine de tout, et tout avance si onestement que on ne parle d'autre chose.' MARRIAGE WITH FRANCIS 57 uncle the Cardinal, great Churchman and prince though he might be, was a sensual profligate, who spared neither innocence nor virtue in the pursuit of his pleasures. 1 Such influences as these, acting upon an already precocious mind, had probably quite reconciled Mary to the idea of an early marriage, even with so undesirable a husband in appearance as the Dauphin Francis, apart from the promptings of ambition, and the direction of her uncles, whose guidance she had been schooled to accept from early childhood. In the late autumn of 1557 the Scots parliament were summoned by the Queen-Regent to receive the demand of the French king that the marriage, so long ago before agreed upon, should be effected ; and although, as Buchanan says, the Scottish reformers well knew that closer relations with France meant a menace to their liberties, they were powerless to resist ; and a bribed nobility appointed eight ambassadors to proceed to France and conclude the espousals. They were in- structed to obtain a pledge from Mary and her husband to preserve intact the laws and privileges of Scotland ; and, on their arrival after a voyage of great danger, a formal promise to that effect was given to them (15th and 30th April) — Mary by letters-patent having previously authorised them, 2 in conjunction with her grandmother, Antoinette Duchess of Guise, to settle the terms of the marriage contract. 1 Had as was Cardinal Lorraine (Charles of Guise), he was not so bad, or bad in the same way, as the elder Cardinal Lorraine, liis uncle John, for whose vi< om timi blamed. Bothwell's coarse reference to Mary after her arrival in Scotland ai l the Cardinal's auhore ' must surely have been unwarranted. 2 The patent is cited in LabanofF, the Scottish ambassadors being the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Bishops of Orkney and Ross, Lords Cassilis and Rothes, James Stuart, Prior or St. Andrews, James Fleming, John Erskine of Dun, and George bcaton. 58 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY This was on the 16th March 1558, but whilst the public treaty was being solemnly discussed, Cardinal Lorraine was urging his niece towards one of the greatest acts of treachery ever committed by a sove- reign against his people. How far Mary herself was conscious of the shameful character of the documents she signed has been a favourite subject for discussion between her partisans and her detractors, but great as may be the responsibility of the Guises in the matter it is impossible to acquit Mary Stuart of blame. She was young, it is true, and had always looked towards her uncles for guidance. Scotland was, moreover, for her now little more than a name. It was spoken of before her as savage, uncouth, and rough, and its population was regarded as semi-barbarians for the most part whose only culture came from France. Doubtless Mary had been brought to believe that such a country, poor and isolated, must necessarily fall a prey to England and lose its Catholicism unless it became an integral part of the realm of France. But after making all allowances it must be recollected that Mary had already shown in many letters still extant that she understood perfectly her sovereign position and privileges, she was clever and clear sighted, and it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the in- terests of the Guises and of France were her first care, whatever became of Scotland. Cardinal Lorraine had everything his own way. There were none to gainsay him, for the Constable Montmorenci was a prisoner of war, and Henry 11. was of course delighted to endorse a policy so flattering to his hopes as that of making Scotland a French dependency. As usual, the Guises grasped more than they could hold, and MARY'S BETRAYAL OF SCOTLAND 59 with such a nation as the Scots the undertakings signed by Mary would have been in any case impossible of fulfilment. But this fact does not render Mary the less guilty of levity in thus, so far as she could do it, bartering away her birthright, without even the smallest mess of pottage in return. On the 4th April she signed at Fontainebleau the three documents which made Scotland a fief of France. 1 In consideration of the protection always given by the kings of France to her realm, and the care that had been taken of her (Mary) by Henry 11., she declares that if she should die without heirs of her body, ' she gives in pure and free donation to the kings of France, present and to come, all her realm of Scotland, and all her rights and claims to the crown of England,' and the king through Cardinal Lorraine accepts the gift, ' to the profit of the crown of France.' As if this were insufficient, Mary next undertook that Scotland and its entire revenue should remain thenceforward pledged in gage to France until the whole sum of a million (crowns) in gold was paid as a return for the expenses that had been incurred by the King in the defence of the country ; and to crown the iniquity, Mary affixed her signature to yet another document, by which she divested herself of the power of ever retracting or annulling the free donation she had made of Scotland to France, in default of heirs of her body. It is obvious that the terms of these documents were not communicated to the Scottish emissaries, who, however humble they might be, would not have dared 1 They are published in LabanofF, vol. i., bul werefirsl printed in Purton Cooper's Correspondance de La Mot/te Faiclun. The original* are in the An hives Nationaks Paris. 60 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY to confirm this betrayal of Scotland, and injustice to the Hamiltons ; but the matter can hardly have been kept so secret that James Stuart, Mary's base brother, had no inkling that something was being done under- hand. He was now twenty-six years of age, and was known to lean to the side of the reformers, as against France, and as one of the emissaries was actively engaged in settling the public treaty in which the interests of Scotland were duly safeguarded. 1 His suspicions may have been strong, but he was as yet powerless to act. The lesson was not lost upon him, though all went smoothly on the surface, except for some distrust when the Scottish ambassadors replied in answer to the French demands that they had not brought authority to crown Francis as their Queen's consort. Splendid as had been some of the French courtly ceremonies under Francis i., they were all thrown in the shade by the blaze of magnificence that accom- panied the first marriage of Mary Stuart. It was an age of ostentatious sumptuousness, when men and women in their garb and mien sought to realise the dreams of the poets, and like all periods of moral decadence it was characterised by the emulation of people of all ranks to outshine their fellows in richness of attire. For weeks before the ceremony, we are told, all the shops and ateliers of Paris, the jewellers, the embroiderers, the habit-makers, and mercers were crowded with purchasers. Within the palace of the Louvre naught was heard but the clamour of workmen 1 It was stipulated that the elder son of the marriage should be King of France and Scotland, and that if only a daughter was born she was to be Queen of Scotland with a dower of 400,000 crowns from France, and only to be married with the consent of the King of France. A widow's jointure of 60,000 livres Toumois was secured to Mary. THE BETROTHAL 61 erecting stands and theatres for the coming festivals, and every gallant and fine lady, every poet, wit, or artificer, contributed something to the attractiveness of the spectacle. 1 The first betrothal or hand-fasting took place on the 19th April in the great hall of the Louvre, when Mary in all her radiance glittering in white satin and gems was led up to Cardinal Lorraine by Henry 11., whilst the young bridegroom, barely fourteen years and three months old, was conducted by the first prince of the blood, Anthony of Bourbon, titular King- Consort of Navarre, gay and debonnaire, light and vain as ever, though the triumph of the Guises must have been a bitter pill to him. After the young pair had joined hands, and pledged their troth before the Cardinal, a grand banquet and ball followed, of which several accounts exist. In the midst of the dancing the King of Navarre whispered ruefully to the Venetian ambassador as he passed that the unforeseen had happened. 2 At the public ceremony a few days after- wards mercurial Paris went crazy with joy. For over two hundred years no Dauphin had been wedded on French soil, and for motives of policy it suited the Guises to show by the splendour of the feast how completely they had brought Scotland under French tutelage. So whilst the festival lasted all went well. Opposite the great west door of Notre Dame a vast amphitheatre was erected, and a sumptuous gallery hung with blue velvet sown with golden lilies traversed the great space from the bishop's palace, and so up to 1 For accounts <>t the marriage festn I e Diicours n the day of her marriage with Francis (firsl printed by Mr. Hay Fleming), a most significant passa uri which shows how ready and eager Mary was in subordinate the intere ta of Scotland to the aims ol the Guises: 'Quanl a vow dire ce je fail a I cosoia je ei pi ire que rous vous contenterc* de moi, cai comme je pense qui Mon ieur le Cardinal mon oncle ••' 1 1 in entendre . . . j'en ay a pen prea hut touf cequeje voulois.' E 66 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY believed in all sincerity that the adoption of any other course than that she took would mean the domination of her country by its ' ancient and inveterate enemy, England,' and its eventual abandonment of the faith which she had been taught to believe offered the only road to human happiness and eternal salvation. Thenceforward the ' King Dauphin ' and the ' Queen Dauphiness ' acted together in the government of Scotland, under the watchful direction of the Guise brothers. As we have seen, the demand that Francis should immediately be crowned King after his mar- riage had been indignantly refused by the Scottish commissioners. 1 Four of them — Cassilis, Rothes, Fleming, and the Bishop of Orkney — in all probability fell victims to their temerity in standing athwart the path of Guisan ambition. Not Knox alone, but others less prejudiced than he, assert that they were poisoned 'with Italian posset or French fegges' ; and Buchanan also says that James Stuart (afterwards Earl of Murray) took the same dose and was saved only by his youth and strength of constitution, though he suffered the evil effects of the poison for the rest of his life. The uncompromising Catholic, Leslie, also speaks of the commissioners suffering from ' evill drogges ' ; and there can be but little doubt that the four commis- sioners were murdered for their patriotism. 2 Mary, in writing to her mother on the subject, says no. word of regret, 3 although in the letter she gave to the 1 Buchanan, History of Scotland. 2 In Mr. Hay Fleming's Mary Stuart several other authorities for this belief are quoted. 3 Dieu ha voulu que les ambassadeurs qui vont presentement vers vous etant a mi chemin ayent este repouses jusqu'a Dieppe : la ils sont tous malade^, et Monsieur d'Orcenay mort. — LabanofF, vol. i. p. 58. THE SCOTTISH PROTESTANTS 67 commissioners on their return to Scotland she expresses her satisfaction with their conduct in France. The survivors, according to the promise they had given to Guise, supported on their return to Scotland the demand made by the French ambassador to the Scottish parliament that the crown matrimonial should be conferred upon Francis, and that his name should figure with that of Mary upon all patents, seals, and coins issued by the Scottish crown. The Queen-Dowager in Scotland had, in the mean- while, carried to the verge of prudence, and beyond, the policy initiated by her brothers in France. Surrounded by French ministers and advisers, civil and military, subordinating all Scottish interests to those of her native country, Mary of Guise had already aroused the jealousy of a powerful faction of nobles against the intruders. The ex-Regent Arran (Duke of Chatel- herault), and even the Earl of Huntly, protested against their country being dragged by France into the war against England and the Spanish power ; and the growing party of Scottish reformers resented bitterly the persecution to which they were exposed without disguise by the Queen-Dowager. The long-foreseen death of Mary Tudor, Queen of England (November 1558), radically changed the aspect of affairs, and the arrival of Knox in Scotland almost simultaneously with the insolent attempt of the Regent to suppress by force all religious rites but those of her own Church (May 1559) was a signal for open resistance to her authority ; and the sacking of the monasteries by the ' rascal multitude' then made the Regent understand that the forces arrayed against her were not only those of greedy nobles and sober 68 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY ministers, but a considerable body of the hitherto condemned and disregarded common people, who understood neither political intrigue nor merely verbal protest. Though civil war was averted for a time by hollow treaties, the union of Protestant lords, thenceforward the ' Lords of the Congre- gation,' became an active power in the state, look- ing yearningly towards the new anti-papal Queen of England for help and support, and forming a per- manent party opposed to the French and Catholic domination of Scotland. The Guises had bent their bow to snapping point, and it had broken in their hands. A purely French and Catholic Scotland, such as they aimed at making it, would have been incom- patible with the existence of an independent Protestant England, now that the daughter of Anne Boleyn sat on the throne, and could make no binding pact with the papacy, which regarded her as a bastard, or with Philip, the champion of Catholic orthodoxy. In the meanwhile, Mary Stuart passed the first few months of her short married life apparently in full contentment with her young husband. In August, four months after her wedding, she speaks in a letter to her mother of ' the honour which the King and Queen, and the King, my husband, continually pay to me.' 1 Francis accompanied his father to the campaign in Picardy in the following month, and. his wife speaks of writing to him there ; and many small indications tend to prove that Mary was as much in love with Francis now as he was with her. He was intellect- ually infinitely inferior to her, but she appears to have exercised all her powers of fascination to please him, 1 Labanoff, vol. i. p. 57. THE CATHOLIC ALLIANCE 69 partaking of his outdoor sports, and lavishing atten- tions upon him, in return for which he became her abject slave, to be manoeuvred by her as the guiding brain of Cardinal Lorraine might direct. The growing power and boldness of the Protestants in France, and above all, the countenance given to the Calvinist assemblies by the princes of the house of Bourbon and the anti-Guisan nobles, persuaded Henry 11. 's present advisers and Philip n. that this was no time for the champions of Catholicism to be fighting each other ; and when the death of Mary Tudor was imminent, a firm peace and union was negotiated between France and Spain, with a secret agreement to the effect that both powers were in future to join forces to extirpate utterly all manifestations of heresy throughout Europe. Mary Stuart's friend and sister- in-law, Elizabeth, still almost a child, was to be married to stern Philip — instead of to his son, to whom she had been promised — France was to be allowed a free hand to make Scotland Catholic by force, as a counter- balance to a potentially heretic England, subsequently to be crushed ; and in return, France was to refrain from disturbance on the Flanders frontier, whilst Philip branded his doubtful Dutch and Flemish subjects with the withering sear of Spanish ortho- doxy. It was a pretty plan on paper ; but, as events turned out, it was stultified, because its framers left out of account, or underestimated, the strength of certain factors which had to be reckoned with : the envy of the French and Scottish nobles ; the ability and facility of conscience of Elizabeth Tudor and Catharine de Medici ; the distrust and hidebound stolidity of 70 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Spanish Philip ; the natural strength and attractive- ness of the principle of religious liberty ; and, finally, the lack of moral control, which, with all her devotion, handed Mary Stuart thralled into the hands of the enemies of her cause. CHAPTER III MARRIED LIFE AND WIDOWHOOD IN FRANCE The new influence introduced by Elizabeth into European politics — Mary's claim to the English crown — Throckmorton in France — Condi- tion of affairs in Scotland (1559) — Death of Henry II. and accession of Francis II. — Rise of the Guises — Mary's influence in France — Married life of Mary and Francis — War in Scotland and death of Mary of Guise — The Treaty of Edinburgh (1 560) — Dissensions in France — Death of Francis 11. — Grief of Mary, as indicative of her character — Projects for her re-marriage — The young King's love for his sister-in-law — Arran a suitor — Various other proposals — Don Carlos — Bedford's mission to France — Interviews with Mary and Navarre — Mary at Rheims — Scot- tish missions to her — James Stuart and Leslie — Mary's secret hopes based on a Spanish marriage — Refuses to ratify the Treaty of Edin- burgh — Preparations for her departure from France. The renewed peace negotiations that followed the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England demonstrated that a fresh force had been introduced into European diplomacy. The consummate states- manship with which Elizabeth and her advisers parried the attempts, both of the Guise party and their oppo- nents in France, to inveigle England into secret peace negotiations which might embroil her with Spain, was the first proof given to the world that the daughter of the great Harry had inherited his spirit, and in future meant to use the difficulties of other powers to serve the ends of England, but not to be made an instru- ment herself, as her sister had been. Calais had to go, it is true, for Philip would not spend a ducat to 71 72 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY recover it for a heretic, and Elizabeth well knew that, as yet, she could not fight France alone for its recovery ; but when the peace treaty of Cateau Cam- bresis was eventually signed (2nd April 1559), it left both France and Spain, notwithstanding their secret agreement against all heretics, elbowing each other to be first to make Elizabeth's friendship, and if possible to secure the nomination of her future husband. 1 One of the principal arguments hinted at by the Spanish party to force Elizabeth's hand was the probability that France would endeavour to establish the claim of Mary Stuart to the throne of England as the next Catholic heir, in consequence of Elizabeth's heresy. 2 The Spanish ambassador wrote that she ' raved ' at the mere idea of such claim, and threatened the French with all manner of dire punishment for it, much to the delight of the Spaniard, who assiduously salted the wound that he had opened. 3 But for the irritation caused by these continual malicious suggestions, and the Guisan zeal of the Queen-Regent of Scotland to crush the Protestants in her daughter's realm, it is probable that the so-called claim of Mary Stuart to the throne of England would have remained a mere theoretical one, to be used when need arose by French diplomatists to 1 For particulars of these intrigues, see the Courtships of Queen Elizabeth by the present writer. 2 Calendar of Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i. 3 The same ambassador, the hot-headed Feria, at a subsequent period (1560), after his retirement from England, told Throckmorton that Car- dinal Lorraine had assured him that when the Regent Arran had consented to the marriage of Mary and Francis in their infancy, he had agreed to a stipulation that Scotland should in future be an appanage of the French crown, and ruled by the successive heirs to the realm of France, even though no issue were born of Mary's marriage. — Forbes, 4th May 1560. This story is extremely unlikely, and in view of Feria's personal hatred of Elizabeth, and his ardent desire to embroil England with France, it may safely be disbelieved. MARY AND ENGLAND 73 forward their own ends ; l but the hint of it was enough to draw the Scottish reformers and Elizabeth together for the purpose of embarrassing the Guise influence, and it caused the agents of England in France to watch Mary's words and actions with a jealous suspicion, of itself almost sufficient to provoke reprisals. The first letter written by Mary and her husband, Francis, to Elizabeth on the conclusion of the treaty of peace (21st April 1559), certainly gives no hint of any unfriendly intention on their part. In the letter, which was carried by Lethington (William Maitland) on his way from France to Scotland with the ratifica- tion of the treaties of peace, Elizabeth is addressed, naturally, in her full title of Queen of England, and is assured of the desire on the part of Mary and her consort to ' demourer perpetiiellement bons freres et sceur, et entiers amys ' ; but the evil seed of suspicion had already been sown, and English statesmen were sourly looking upon the young Queen of Scots as the enemy of their country. The first note of this feeling is seen in a letter from Sir John Mason, one of the peace commissioners, who reports to Sir William Cecil that the ' Queen of Scots is very sick, and these men (i.e. the French) fear that she will not long continue. God take her to Him as soon as may please Him! 2 Mary, in good truth, appears to have been in very delicate health at the time. She had suffered frequently from 1 Cardinal Lorraine \\as apparently to blame fox Brat bringing Forward the idea in a form ofFensivi t<> Elizabeth. In a memorandum oi Cecil's {Hatfield MS '£. vol. i. p. 154) it 11 stated that when the peace commis- 1 up t .11 t ati iu Cambre 1 , Cardinal Lorraine expressed a doubl u ■ tether they ought to 'treat with any for England but with the Dolphin and his wife. 1 But thi speech wai repudiated, and the Cardinal reproved, l>y the Constable Montmorenci. 2 Foreign Calendar, Elizabeth (March 15 <;<>)• 74 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY various illnesses before her marriage, but the heart weakness, probably arising from indigestion, which we have seen troubled her even as a child, seriously threatened her life during her short period of wedlock in France. When Sir Nicholas Throckmorton went to France for the ratification of the peace treaty, and to remain afterwards as Elizabeth's resident ambas- sador, he considered it necessary to ask Elizabeth how he should bear himself towards Mary and the Guises, and was told, practically, there was no need for him to have anything to do with them at all officially ; but, ' as for your dooings with the familye of Guise, it shal be mete to show good countenance towards them ; and if ye shal find any friendshipp in them, to entertayne it with as good. If otherwise, ye maye dissemble the same, as ye shall see meetest ; for it is best to knowe them without knowledge. If any harme be meant it is to be learned thence ; and therein may ye have best help of Scottes.' 1 Before Throckmorton had proceeded beyond Bou- logne, he was able to send to Cecil two specimens of the painted scutcheons to be used for decoration during the peace and marriage festivities. They represented the arms of Scotland and France borne by Mary and her husband, and quartered with them those of England ; and, although by themselves they might have been innocent enough, the suspicions engendered by the Spaniards, coupled with Cardinal Lorraine's imprudent eagerness, gave to them an importance which led to disastrous results. 2 1 Foreign Calendar, Elizabeth (March 1559), and Forbes's Public Trans- actions. 2 Lord Howard of Effingham, the principal English special ambassador, also mentions very different scutcheons in a letter to the Queen (24th MARY AND ENGLAND 75 At their first interview with the French royal family Throckmorton and his colleagues did not see Mary Stuart ; ' for that, as it is said, they (i.e. Mary and the Princess Margaret, afterwards Duchess of Savoy) be somewhat sickly ' ; and this fact is also mentioned by Howard in his letter to the Queen. Mary, however, was well enough to receive the Englishmen on the same day. They found her seated with her husband by her side, and they first addressed Francis with the usual diplomatic compliments. Montmorenci was close to the lad's side, and whispered to him what he had to say in reply ; to the effect that he was glad there was peace, and that he would do all he could to preserve it. The letter jointly to Mary and him was then delivered, and read aloud by a secretary. 1 Whereupon the Queen herself made answer, in effect, that for the better observation of the treaty she and her husband had sent the ratification to your highness . . . and they would omit nothing that might tend to the conservation of the same : and that, for her part, she had the more cause to do so, for the near parentage which is betwixt your two Majesties.' It is May). He was entertained splendidly on his way from Amiens to Paris at various houses belonging to Constable Montmorenci. At that of Escouan, near Paris, they noticed 'upon the gate, as in divers places within the house, were set uppe three scutcheons; the middlemost conteyninge the armes of Englandc; that on the right hande conteyninge a rose half whyte and halt redde, and the thurd conteyninge a great E, as it seemed to me tor your Highness 1 name. The lyke we found at our lodgings at Paris/ [< evident that this was intended by Montmorenci as a counterstroke to the (juisrs' scutcheons quartering England on Mary's amis, and it demon- strates how profoundly tin- nobility of France was divided between the Guisan-papal party and the 'politicians' who favoured toleration and friendship with England. When, later, Throckmorton showed to Mont- morenci and protested again t the escutcheons bearing the English arms quartered on those of Scotland and France, the ('unstable, whilst evidently disapproving of them, endeavoured to minimise their significance, and pointed out that Elizabeth quartered the arms of France upon her own, as her ancestors had done. — See letters in Forbes'l Public Transactions, etc. 76 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY evident that, for the moment at least, the Montmoren- cis were again to the fore, and doubtless the Constable was glad to get the interview over so well, without the Guise interference ; for he hurried the ambassadors away on the plea of Mary's ' weaknesse.' Throck- morton reported at the same interview that, ' in myne opinion she looketh very ill, very pale and grene, and therewith all short breathed : and it is whispered here amongst them that she cannot long live.' l A week later Howard saw her again, for the purpose of witnessing her oath to the peace treaty with Scot- land. On this occasion she conspicuously took the lead, ' to speake more than her husband ' ; and said that, being Elizabeth's good-sister and cousin, she was rejoiced at the peace that had been concluded. She was indeed, so far as words went, most emphatic in her professions of a desire to live on good terms with England. Henry n. also, now that Montmorenci, his old friend and mentor, was by his side, excelled himself in polite attentions to Elizabeth's representatives ; but Cardinal Lorraine, ever fertile in expedients, cleverly arranged for the King to proceed in June on a series of visits to houses belonging to the Montmorencis and Diane de Poictiers, thus securing a free hand for himself in Paris, at least for several weeks. The effect of this manoeuvre soon became apparent. Mary Stuart was ill at the time : swooned once in church, and repeatedly after eating, and was reported by the Spaniards to be suffering from an incurable malady ; but still the activity of her friends was unabated. Apart from other causes, there were sufficient in the news she received from Scotland to 1 Forbes, vol. i., 24th May 1559. RISING IN SCOTLAND 77 aggravate her constitutional weakness. The Queen- Dowager had found the reformers and discontented nobles too hard a nut for her to crack. She had broken faith with them more than once, and at last attempted to capture their leaders by treachery and to suppress Scottish religious liberty with French pikes. This was too much ; and the Lords of the Congregation raised the standard of Protestantism, driving the Queen-Regent into Dunbar ; and then through the larger towns of the south and east of Scotland a gust of fury against the Mass and the priests had swept, sparing nothing, however beautiful, that seemed to savour of idolatry. That the reform party should look to Elizabeth for support was natural, and just as natural was it that the Queen-Regent should send, as she did, swift couriers to her brothers, craving the aid of French arms to cram papacy down the throats of the obstinate Scots. Throckmorton therefore watched suspiciously and jealously the proceedings of Mary and the Guises in Paris whilst the King was away. They were winning English Catholics by bribes and pensions to join their party ; they were inquiring as to the number of ships at Elizabeth's disposal ; they were busy preparing a strong French force for Scotland, under their brother the Marquis d'Elbceuf; and already (7th June 1559) the English ambassador was persuaded that Mary Stuart and her uncles intended at the earliest opportunity to attack Elizabeth, simul- taneously on the side of Scotland and in the Channel. Doubts even were whispered as to the stability of Montmorenci. 'The Dolphin (reported Throckmor- ton) is counted to be the head of all those doings in Scotland ; and it is discoursed that in case the 78 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY Constable be brought to grant to war with us, that it is for feare of displeasing the King Dolphin.' * With such news as this speeding to Elizabeth by every courier, it is not surprising that she should on her side encourage the Scottish rivals of the house of Guise. 2 We have seen in an earlier page how the Hamiltons had been ousted from their pre-eminent position by French Guisan intrigue. They were, it is true, poor creatures, both father and son, but their right was undoubted, and they were good enough tools for the Queen of England whilst she wanted them. The eldest son of the ex-Regent Duke of Chatelherault, the Earl of Arran, was in France, where he had been reared ; and secret messengers, Randolph, Killigrew, and other trusty diplomatists, skilled in Scottish affairs, were sent backwards and forwards from Elizabeth to him, and to Throckmorton in Paris, to urge him to action. This was the time, said they, with half Scotland in arms against the French and priestly tyranny, for him by a bold stroke to seize power as a native prince ; and, with the aid of England, to assert his exalted birthright. A more splendid bait even than this was held out to him. The Queen of England herself was unmarried. What if he became a favoured suitor, and ruled over Eng- land and Scotland jointly with her. He was nearly idiotic, but the suggestion was too tempting to be foregone, and he forsook the French for the English. But his interviews with English agents, secret though they were, did not escape the vigilance of the Guise 1 Forbes, vol. i. p. 118. 2 Throckmorton, writing early in June 1559, urges the Queen 'to nourish and entertain the garboil in Scotland as much as may be.' FEARS OF WAR 79 spies, and he was peremptorily summoned to the French court to answer for himself. With infinite cunning, and through dire danger for both, Killigrew managed to smuggle him out of France across the Swiss frontier, and afterwards to England, though proclamations ordered his capture, dead or alive ; and whilst it suited English interests he was used and befooled, and so passes for a space out of this history. 1 It will thus be seen that in June and July 1559 the insatiable ambition and unstatesmanlike rashness of the Guises and their niece had dragged England and Scotland once more to the brink of inevitable war before the signatures of the peace treaty were well dry. The escutcheon business, puerile as it was, whilst useless as an assertion of Mary's claim to England, could not fail to irritate Elizabeth ; and Throckmorton was ordered to remonstrate with the King and the Constable to the effect that 'Whatsoever the heraulds or paynters shall vaynely devise, no such things shall be set forth or published to the world.' Signs multiplied that the Guise party intended to force a conflict before Elizabeth's throne was secure.' ' In the course of some feigned suggestions of theirs to marry the Duke de Nemours (Jacques of Savoy) to the Queen of England, their agent told Throck- 1 Thai Mary personally was an approving party to the intrigues for which Cardinal Lorraine is usually held responsible, and ol which Throck- morton says young Pranci him 'it wai the head, is proved l>y t he reply [1 by her to M. de Monpcon, who was ordered lo capture Arran. Frenchman apologised t<> th( Qu I (1 for having to take 8Uch measures against a kinsman oi hen , and ihl n pli< d thai he could do her ' no greater pleasure than to u th Earl ol Arran as an arrant traitor.' Throckmorton, when telling thi torj to I ecil, recommendi that i' should be ' insinuated ai much a po ibli into the ear oi the Duke of Chatelherauh and the Hamilton' , in order to irritate them and thi Protestant against Prance. 2 Throckmorton to Cecil, 21st June 1559. 80 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY morton that when the suitor asked for Montmorenci's support, which the latter would not promise, the Constable had said : ' What ! do you not know that the Queen Dolphin hath right and title to England ? n and every day by some such insidious whisper as this the breach was made wider. The preparations for the ratification of the peace between France and Spain, which was to be accom- panied by the betrothals of the King's eldest daughter Elizabeth to the King of Spain, and his sister Margaret to the Duke of Savoy, kept Paris in a fever of excite- ment whilst these troubles grew. Rehearsals of the martial sports to be exhibited at the ceremony furnished interesting preliminary shows to the courtiers ; recep- tions of great personages deputed to take part in the betrothals kept the royal family and the greater nobles busy ; and Mary Stuart and her young husband were active figures in all the splendid turmoil, rejoicing probably more than any at the thought that the close bonds now to be forged between France and Spain would secure to the Catholic party a free hand in their efforts to dominate Scotland, with ulterior views upon England, in favour of Mary Stuart. The splendid rejoicings that accompanied the es- pousals of the princesses on the 26th and 27th June do not nearly concern our subject ; but at the great tournament that took place on the 27th under the shadow of Bastille, hard by St. Antoine, it was noted that, as Mary Stuart was carried through the press in her litter to witness the encounter from the royal tribune, her servants cleared the way with shouts 1 Throckmorton to Cecil, 21st June 1 559. The Constable, it must be recollected, was England's friend. A SINISTER TOURNAMENT 81 of ' Place ! place for the Queen of England ! ' and when the Dauphin's band of knights began the joust, they were preceded by two ' Scottish heralds : faire set out with the King Dolphin's and the Queen Dolphin's arms, with a scutcheon of England set forth to the show, as all the world might easily perceive, the same being embroidered upon purple velvet, and set on with armoury upon their breastes, backes and sleaves.' Almost hourly the distrust deepened in sight of such indications as these. On all hands the rumour spread that, now that the dreaded King of Spain was Henry's son-in-law, and no longer to be feared, a great French force would be sent to re-establish the authority of the Queen-Regent and the clergy in Scotland, and afterwards to deal with heresy in England. With a heavy heart, if not a frowning face, it must have been, that Throckmorton sat in his gallery on the 30th June to witness the last and most pompous of the tournaments that celebrated the coalition against the faith of which his Queen was champion ; and the triumph, so far as men could see, of the Catholic union formed to crush Protestantism throughout the world. Henry 11. himself, gallant and handsome, proud of his pre-eminence on the tilting-ground, rode a big bay war-horse, decked, like its rider, with the black and white device of the widowed Diane de Poictiers. Foreign soldiers, princes of the blood, and the nobles of France, crowded the lists in glittering raiment ; and all sought to win the approval of the fair spectators by their dexterity and grace. It was Henry's dominant passion to excel in this exercise. He F 82 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY was a fine horseman, and a bold tilter, and, as is usual in the case of princes, his performances lost nothing from lack of appreciation. On this occasion he appeared to be more than usually determined to distinguish himself. The encounter was nearly over, for the light was waning, and the King, so far, had vanquished all comers ; but he lusted still for fresh honours, and challenged the Franco-Scotsman, Mont- gomerie, Sieur de L'Orge, to run against him. The Scotsman at first refused point-blank to tilt against his King, and, when pressed, urged many excuses. Henry, annoyed at this, insisted upon the challenge, now in the form of a command. Catharine de Medici, in the meanwhile, desirous of ending the dangerous sport, sent a messenger from her tribune to pray her husband to tilt no more for that day, but to come and receive from her and the ladies the praise due for his past prowess. The King had his way in spite of all. At the first shock of the combatants Montgomerie's lance carried away the King's visor, but was broken with the force of the impact ; ' and, so with the rest of the staff", hitting the King upon the face, gave him such a counterbuff as he drove the splint right over his eye on his right side, the force of which stroke was so vehement, and the pain he had, withal, so great, as he was much astonished, and had great ado, with reeling to and fro, to keep himself on horseback.' The King was at once succoured and disarmed, and the wound, not being outwardly large, was thought at first not to be dangerous, although ' Marry,' says Throckmorton, ' I saw a splint taken out of a good bigness, and nothing else was done to him on the field ; but I noted him to be very weake, and to have DEATH OF HENRY II. 83 the sens of all his lymmes almost benommed, for, being carried away as he lay along, nothing covered but his face, he moved neither hand nor fote, but laye as one amased.' Rapidly bearing him across the river to the palace of the Tournelles, his officers shut the doors against all comers but the two brothers Guise and the Constable. Gloom fell upon the gaudy merrymakers, and each man, by his looks, dumbly asked his neighbour what the calamity might portend. The accession of a King and Queen, still not much more than children, known to be as ductile clay in the hands of the Guises and the extreme papal party, meant almost certainly the fall of Montmorenci and the moderates, and the unchecked and unsparing persecution of the religious reformers in France : it meant, sooner or later as it seemed, a great national war of conquest against England, which, if successful, would result in the triumph of the papacy throughout Christendom ; and, well as such a programme might suit the personal ambition of the Guises, it filled with dismay the purely French princes and nobles who had seen with delight successive Kings of France break or weaken, one by one, the bonds that held their national Church in subservience to Rome. Whilst the King lay dying at the Tournelles, on the third day after his hurt, Cardinal Lorraine with his brother and friends summoned a council, and urged that rigid means should at once be taken to crush the Protestants in Scotland. Mary's bastard brother James, who had survived the 'evil drogges ' at Dieppe, was to be captured and killed, as were the Karl of Argylc, Krskinc of Dun, and all their friends 84 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY and followers ; and, but for the timely warning sent by Throckmorton, the iniquitous plan would have been carried out. Nor was this the only step taken thus hurriedly by the Guises whilst yet the King, with a splinter through his brain, lingered in agony. Five thousand soldiers were despatched to the coast for embarkation on the warships, the galleys were ordered from the Mediterranean to the Channel, and all was made ready for the domination of Scotland, as a first step towards the subjection of religious thought to the papacy, and of Great Britain to France. The plan, as has already been pointed out, failed because, amongst other shortcomings, it overrated the power of religious affinities to obliterate traditional national aims and policies. On the ioth June 1559 Henry 11. breathed his last, and the old Constable, with bitterness in his heart, watched ceaselessly until its sepulture by the corpse of the King who had loved him better than he had loved his own father, and with better reason. Swift horses had gone racing to the south of France to summon the first prince of the blood, Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, whose right it was to share the councils of the new King. But Montmorenci knew that Anthony was a weak reed to lean upon, and that nothing now would withstand the masterful Cardinal and his splendid brother, Francis of Guise. Too late, the dying King himself had seen the danger, and had with his last breath begged Catharine de Medici to insist upon exercising a share in the govern- ment. But she had to settle her long account now, and her first care was to barter with the Guises for the disgrace of their patroness and her rival, Diane de FRANCIS AND MARY 85 Poictiers, in return for which she was content for a time to stand aside whilst the Cardinal did as he listed with Francis 11. and Mary, King and Queen of France and Scotland. Though all they did must have been tinged with the influence of their mentor, neither Mary nor her husband was quite a cipher. Francis appears to have been a lad of eager ambition, stirred to vivacity by the spirit of his wife. He was lying sick when the brothers Guise and the Cardinal, with the Duke of Nemours, entered his chamber, and kneeling, greeted him as King. Francis sprang up in almost joyful excitement, protesting that he was now well, and ready to accompany them to the Louvre to receive the homage of the corporations. Followed by his weeping mother and his wife, young Francis proceeded triumphantly to perform his first ceremonial act as King of France ; but when anything beyond ceremony was demanded of him he still turned instinctively to stronger spirits than his own. ' The House of Guise now ruleth,' reported Throckmorton only a few days after Henry died, and a fortnight later he says : ■ the Queen-Mother hath, though not in name, yet in deed and effect, the authority of Regent . . . ; the state being governed by Cardinal Lorraine and the Duke of Guise.' ' And, seeing how the House of Guise ruleth, with whom I am in very small grace, and that the Queen of Scotland, who is a great doer here and taketh all upon her, hath so small an opinion of me, I shall be able to do small service with her.' These extracts, and many others to a similar effect that could be quoted, demonstrate the positions held 86 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY by the various dramatis persona at this juncture. Francis, uxorious, ambitious, and eager, but weak and submissive; Mary, keenly alive and responsive to the far-reaching policy of her uncles, and, like them, determined to do her part with a masterful hand ; and finally, Catharine, Queen-Dowager, for a time making common cause with the Guises as the strongest party, and dissembling her dislike to them, in payment for the persecution of Diane de Poictiers. Harmony seems to have existed for a time, even, between Mary and her mother-in-law. The former, we are told by Throckmorton (13th July), was un- grateful enough to demand immediately after the King's death that Diane de Poictiers should ' make accompt of the French King's cabinet, and of all his jewels ' ; and she in her letters goes so far as to speak sympathetically of Catharine's sorrow in her bereave- ment. ' She is so much troubled still at the illness and death of the late King, that I fear she will fall seriously sick of grief — I think that, were it not that the King her son is so obedient that he will do nothing but what she wishes, she would soon die, which would be the worst thing that could happen to this poor country, and to all of us.' 1 To judge, indeed, from Mary's own correspondence and the observation of contemporary writers, they seemed to have been an exceedingly united family for the few months after Henry's death. Mary never fails to praise her husband for his goodness ; and it is evident that he, for his part, was more ' eperdument epris ' of her than ever. 1 Mary to her mother (Labanofr, vol. i. p. 72). WAR IN SCOTLAND 87 That Mary had gained entire power over her hus- band, and knew it, is shown by a letter she wrote to her mother in the early spring of 1560. The cause of the papal party had been going badly in Scotland. The expedition of the Marquis d'Elbceuf to aid his sister Mary of Guise had been dispersed by storm, and the Queen of England's army and navy, sup- porting the Lords of the Congregation headed by Chatelherault and his son, had driven the French soldiers of the Queen-Regent into their fortress of Leith. Mary of Guise herself had been formally deposed from the Regency by the lords, and both the English and Scottish Protestants had assumed the authority of Mary to abolish the government of foreigners by force in Scotland. Cunning William Maitland of Lethington, the brain of the revolt, fiery Knox the tongue of it, and Kirkaldy of Grange the strong arm, with the ambitious Stuart bastard, had together contrived to weld into a solid force Scottish impatience of religious dictation, and patriotic re- pugnance to armed foreign government ; England was now openly in the field on the side of the Scots as against France — a fit return for the pretensions of Francis and Mary to the crown of England. The inevitable reaction against the Guises had, moreover, taken place in France. The Bourbon princes, and some of the most powerful nobles, smiled upon the growing power of the Huguenots, and the conspiracy discovered against the Guises at Amboise, and the bad blood caused by the subsequent execu- tions (March 1560), had put the Guises on the defensive ; and to all the prayers of their despairing and beleaguered sister in Scotland they were forced to 88 LOVE AFFAIRS OF QUEEN MARY send but a faltering answer. At this juncture it was that Mary wrote comforting her mother, now closely beset by enemies in Edinburgh Castle. ' I can assure you,' she writes, ' that the King has so much care to succour you that you cannot fail to be content with him. He has promised me to do so, and I will not let him forget it, nor the Queen either, who has honoured us by weeping at your troubles. I have urged her so, that I am sure that she will not fail to send you all the help she can.' 1 Francis in the meanwhile had grown very rapidly, and was now sixteen, but his health was still delicate, as was that of Mary herself. Vicomte de Noailles, dining with Throckmorton in the autumn of 1559, told him that her weakness was increasing to such an extent that she could not live long, and the Spanish ambassador was eager to carry the news to him, that ' she looked very evil ' at dinner ; ' and was so weake, as even before all the presence that was there, she fell on swooning, and was in very dangerous case, as she always is after a meale. When she was with aqua composita and other things revived . . . she retired.' The royal couple, however, notwithstanding their poor health, continued for the great part of the autumn and spring in progresses through Central and Eastern France. The coronation at Rheims was followed by a series of journeys in which, contrary to previous custom, the houses of the great nobles were avoided, the stopping-places usually being either royal palaces or those belonging to the house of Lorraine. 2 Mary 1 Labanoff, vol. i. p. 71. 2 The entrance of Francis and Mary into Arran's forfeited town of Chatelherault is thus described by Throckmorton (29th November 1559) : ' The Quene, who came first, was received by the burgeois and convoyde MARY'S ANXIETY 89 Stuart's jointure of sixty thousand livres was to be drawn from Touraine, and it was to this part of France that she affected particular attachment. The beautiful young Queen therefore received such a welcome, with her husband, at their entry into Tours, and subsequently at Chenonceau, as to have inspired poets and chroniclers to record in glowing language this, the brief bright summer of Mary's life. 1 But behind all the extravagant rejoicing and eulogy of the ' divine Francis,' there lurked a grisly spectre that refused to be conjured away. No effective aid could be sent to Scotland ; for three-quarters of the French nobles shrank away from the Guises, and even Navarre, the first prince of the blood, was meeting the English ambassador, disguised and at night, in order to express his adhesion to the Queen of England and her party, as against Mary and her uncles. The French troops were in hopeless case shut up in Leith, to the palice, having a canapy of crimson damask, the arms of England, France, and Scotland quartered thereon, carried over her by foure of the townsmen. The King, coming after, was in like sort received, and had carried over him a canopy of purple damask with the armes of France only. There were two gates of the towne paineted, through which they passed ; on the right sides whereof were set forth the armes of France with the King's name, and on the left sides the armes of England, France, and Scotland, quartered, with the Queue's name. Upon which gates, under- neath the King's and Quene's pictures, were set forth the verses in golden letters which we send your Majesty here enclosed.' The following was one of the verses : — ' Gallia pcrpetuis pugnaxquc Britannia bellis. Olim o