Life of Mary Queen of Scots Volume I Part 13

ii. p. 164.

[140] Melville's Memoirs, p. 156.--Keith, p. 337.

[141] Melville's Memoirs, p. 158.

[142] Keith, p. 345, and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 180.

[143] Buchanan's History, Book XVIII.--His "Detection," in Anderson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 6.; and his "Oration," p. 44.

[144] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 181, et seq. Goodall, vol. i. p. 292, et seq.

[145] Keith, p. 345.

[146] Knox, p. 386--Anderson, vol. i. p. 90--Tytler, vol. ii. p.

39--Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 206-207.

[147] Knox, p. 396, and Chalmers, p. 219.

[148] Knox, p. 392. Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 206 and 218. Laing, vol. i. p.

359. In the first edition of Tytler's "Vindication," Bothwell, being confounded with the former Earl, his father, was said to be about fifty-nine at this period. In the second edition, Tytler partly corrected his error, but not entirely; for he stated Bothwell's age to be forty-three when he married. Chalmers, who is seldom wrong in the matter of dates, has settled the question.

[149] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 217.

[150] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 183 and 184.

[151] Maitland's Official Letter to Catherine de Medicis, in Keith, p.

348.

[152] These n.o.blemen, it may be observed, instead of being the friends, were the personal and political enemies of Bothwell, with whom Darnley was less displeased than with them.

[153] Goodall, vol. i. p. 284.--Keith, p. 348.

[154] Le Croc's Letter in Keith, p. 346.

[155] Maitland's Letter in Keith, p. 349.

[156] Keith, idem, p. 346 and 349.

[157] Keith, idem, p. 350.

[158] Knox, p. 399.

[159] The turn which Buchanan gives to the whole of this affair, in the work he libellously calls a "History," scarcely deserves notice. "In the meantime," he veraciously writes in his Eighteenth Book, "the King, finding no place for favour with his wife, is sent away with injuries and reproaches; and though he often tried her spirit, yet by no offices of observance could he obtain to be admitted to conjugal familiarity as before; whereupon he retired, in discontent, to Stirling." In his "Detection," he is still more ludicrously false. "In the meantime," he writes, "the King commanded out of sight, and with injuries and miseries banished from her, kept himself close with a few of his servants at Stirling; for, alas! what should he else do? He could not creep into any piece of grace with the Queen, nor could get so much as to obtain his daily necessary expenses, to find his servants and horses. And, finally, with brawlings lightly rising for every small trifle, and quarrels, usually picked, he was chased out of her presence; yet his heart, obstinately fixed in loving her, could not be restrained, but he must needs come back to Edinburgh of purpose, with all kind of serviceable humbleness, to get some entry into her former favour, and to recover the kind society of marriage: who once again, with most dishonourable disdain excluded, once again returns from whence he came, there, as in solitary desert, to bewail his woful miseries." Anderson, vol. ii. p. 9.--Another equally honest record of these times, commonly known by the name of "Murray's or Cecil's Journal," the former having supplied the information to the latter, to answer his own views at a subsequent period, says,--"At this time, the King coming from Stirling, _was repulsed with chiding_."

The same Journal mentions, that, on the 24th of September, Mary lodged in the Chequer House, and met with Bothwell,--a story which Buchanan disgustingly amplifies in his Detection, though the Privy Council records prove that the Queen lodged in her Palace of Holyrood on the 24th with her Privy Council and officers of state in attendance. As to Buchanan's complaint, that the King was stinted in his necessary expenses, the treasurer's accounts clearly show its falsehood. "The fact is," says Chalmers, "that he was allowed to order, by himself, payments in money and furnishments of necessaries from the public treasurer. And the treasurer's accounts show that he was amply furnished with necessaries at the very time when those calumnious statements were a.s.serted by men who knew them to be untrue. On two days alone, the 13th and 31st of August, the treasurer, by the King and Queen's order, was supplied with a vast number of articles for the King's use alone, amounting to 300_l._, which is more than the Queen had for six months, even including the necessaries which she had during her confinement."--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 186. These minute details would be unworthy of attention, did they not serve to prove the difficulty of determining whether Buchanan's patron, who was also Mary's Prime Minister, or the Historian himself, possessed the superior talent for misrepresentation.

[160] Birrel's Diary.--Keith, p. 351.--Goodall, vol. i. p. 302.--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 190, vol. ii. p. 109 and 224.

[161] Buchanan's History, book xviii.; and in his, "Detection," he repeats the same story, with still more venom.

[162] Both of these Registers are quoted by Chalmers, vol. i. p. 181.

[163] Miss Benger's observations upon this subject are judicious and forcible. "It was not till the 16th, the Queen, with her Officers of State, pa.s.sed to hermitage Castle, twenty miles distant, whether to confer with Bothwell on business, respecting the motives for the late outrage on his person, or purely as a visit of friendship and condolence, a respectful, and as it should seem, well-merited acknowledgement of his loyal services, must be left to conjecture. It is, however, not improbable, since the Earl of Morton was, at that time, known to be in the neighbouring March of Cessford, that Mary might be anxious to ascertain from Bothwell's lips, whether he ascribed the attack on his person to that n.o.bleman's instigation. In Morton's behalf she had long been importuned by Murray, by Elizabeth, and Maitland, and, at a proper time, meant to yield to their solicitations; but the discovery of a new treason, would have altered her proceedings; to ascertain the fact was, therefore, of importance. By whatever considerations Mary was induced to pay this visit, there appears not (when calumny is discarded), any specific ground for the suspicion, that she then felt for Bothwell a warmer sentiment than friendship; in all her affections, Mary was ardent and romantic, and though it should have been admitted, that she had gone to Hermitage Castle, merely to say one kind word to the loyal servant, whose blood had lately flowed in her service, she had, two years before, made a far greater effort to gratify a _female_ friend, when she rode to Callender, to a.s.sist at the baptism of Lord Livingston's child, regardless of the danger which awaited her, from Murray and his party."--Memoirs, vol. ii.

p. 289. We have dwelt too long on a calumny unsupported by any respectable evidence.

[164] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 224.