Life of Mary Queen of Scots Volume II Part 7

It has been seen, first, by external evidence, that these papers are spurious, because the notorious ambition of Morton and Murray, and the perilous predicament in which it finally placed them, rendered their fabrication necessary to save themselves from ruin,--because Mary could not have written any love-letters or sonnets to Bothwell, for whom, at best, she never felt any thing but common regard, and who was obliged to seize and carry off her person, in order to force her into an unwilling marriage,--because such letters, if they had been written, would not have been preserved by Bothwell, or, if preserved, would have been more numerous,--because the story of their discovery is altogether improbable, since Bothwell, for the most satisfactory reasons, would never have thought of sending for them to the Castle of Edinburgh on the 20th of June 1567,--because not a word was said about them long after they were discovered, but, on the contrary, motives quite inconsistent with their contents a.s.signed for sequestrating Mary's person in Loch-Leven,--because, though Dalgleish was tried, condemned, and executed, not a question was put to him, as appears by his examination, still extant, concerning these letters,--because the originals were only produced twice, and _that_ under suspicious and unsatisfactory circ.u.mstances,--because nothing but translations, and translations from translations, of these originals, now exist, from which no fair arguments can be drawn,--because Murray and his a.s.sociates have been convicted of open forgery in several other instances, and are therefore the more liable to be doubted in this,--because Bothwell not only never accused Mary, but was unable to show Morton any writing of her's sanctioning the murder, and, by subsequent declarations, seems to have exculpated her from all share in it,--because Mary herself invariably denied that she had ever written such letters, undertaking to prove that they were fabrications, if the originals, or even copies, were shown to her,--because Lady Lennox, Darnley's mother, many of the most respectable of the Scottish n.o.bility, Norfolk, and a numerous party in England, and all her Continental friends, avowed their belief of her innocence,--because the confessions and depositions of Bothwell's accomplices, so far from implicating, tended to acquit her of all blame, though the persons by whom the depositions were made had every inducement to accuse her, if it had been in their power,--and because the external evidence, advanced in support of the letters by Robertson and others, is entirely nugatory.

It has been seen, second, by internal evidence, that the Letters are spurious,--because the translations differ from each other,--because the style and composition of many pa.s.sages, are not such as could ever have come from Mary's pen,--because every facility was given to forgery by the nature of her handwriting, and by the access which the forgers had to genuine letters and papers, of which they could make a partial use,--because, at the time in which they are alleged to have been written, Mary was, in all probability, not at the places from which they are dated,--because the letters contradict each other, and are all contradicted by the sonnets,--and because the arguments in support of them, drawn from internal evidence by Robertson and others, are equally inconclusive with their external proofs.

If Mary's innocence, from all the blacker crimes with which she has been charged, must still continue matter of doubt, it is not too much to declare all history uncertain, and virtue and vice merely convertible terms.

ADDENDUM.

Through the kindness of William Traill, Esq. of Woodwick, Orkney, we are enabled to give the following authentic genealogical account of the manner in which the interesting portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, engraved for this Work, and particularly described in Vol. I. Chap. IV., came into the possession of his family.

"Sir Robert Stewart of Strathdon, son of King James V., by Eupham, daughter of Alexander, 1st Lord Elphingston, obtained a grant of the Crown lands of Orkney and Shetland from his sister Queen Mary in 1565. He was created Earl of Orkney by his uncle James VI., 28th October 1581. He married Lady Jean Kennedy, daughter of Gilbert, fourth Earl of Ca.s.sils.

"George Traill, son of the Laird of Blebo in Fife, married, first, Jean Kennedy of Carmunks, a relative of the Earl's Lady. He accompanied the Earl to Orkney; got a grant from the Earl of the lands of Quandale, in the Island of Ronsay, and, as stewart or factor, managed the affairs of the earldom. By Jean Kennedy he had one son, the first Thomas Traill of Holland. He afterwards married Isobel Craigie of Gairsay, by whom he had James Traill of Quandale, who married Ann Baikie of Burness. Lady Barbara Stewart, the Earl's youngest daughter, married Hugh Halcro of Halcro, a descendant of the Royal Family of Denmark, and who possessed a great part of the Islands of Orkney. For her patrimony, the Earl wadset to Halcro lands, in Widewall, Ronaldsvoe, and in South Ronaldshay, which lands were afterwards redeemed by Patrick Stewart, the Earl's eldest son, 1598.

_Vide_ Bishop Law's Rentall 1614. Lady Barbara, being the youngest and the last of the Earl's family, succeeded to her father's furniture, plate, pictures, and other moveables, and amongst the rest, the family picture of Queen Mary. Hugh Halcro of that Ilk, the eldest son of this marriage, succeeded his father, and married Jean, daughter of William Stewart of Mains and Burray. _Vid._ Charters 1615 and 1620. In 1644, this Hugh Halcro executed a settlement in favour of Hugh his Oye, and his heirs; whom failing, to Patrick his brother; whom failing, to Harry fiar of Aikrs; whom failing, to Edward of Hauton; whom all failing, to the name of Halcro. Hugh the Oye, married Margaret, daughter of James Stewart of Gromsay. _Vid._ Charter by him in her favour of lands in South Ronaldshay and the Island Cava, 12th June 1630. Their son, Hugh Halcro of that Ilk, married Barbara Greem, by whom he had two daughters, Jean and Sibella Halcro. Jean married Alexander Mouat Swenze, and Sibella married James Baikie of Burness; and the estate of Halcro was divided between these families by decreet-arbitral, 21st and 22d December 1677,--Arthur Baikie of Tankerness, and John Kennaday of Carmunks, arbiters; which decreet is in the possession of the present William Traill of Woodwick, Esquire, as is the picture of Queen Mary, and other family relics."

END OF VOLUME SECOND.

PRINTED BY J. HUTCHISON, FOR THE HEIRS OF D. WILLISON.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. XVII.

[2] Keith, Appendix, p. 139.

[3] Keith, Preface, p. vii.

[4] Melville's Memoirs, p. 170.

[5] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 316.--Keith, p. 355; Appendix, p. 136.--Anderson, vol. ii. p. 270. vol. iv. p. 183 and 188.--"Martyre de Marie," in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 210. It would be difficult to explain why Robertson, who, in the Dissertation subjoined to his History, allows the authenticity of the doc.u.ments which detail the particulars of this important conference at Craigmillar, should not have taken the slightest notice of it in his History. There is surely something indicative of partiality in the omission. Miss Benger, who is not always over-favourable to Mary, remarks on her decision regarding a divorce;--"It is difficult to develope the motives of Mary's refusal. Had she secretly loved Bothwell, she would probably have embraced the means of liberty; and had she already embarked in a criminal intrigue, she would not have resisted the persuasions of her paramour. If, influenced alone by vindictive feelings, she sought her husband's life, she must have been sensible that, when the nuptial tie was dissolved, he would be more easily a.s.sailable. Why then did she recoil from the proposal, unless she feared to compromise herself by endangering Darnley's safety, or that some sentiments of affection still lingered in her heart? It has been supposed, that she dreaded the censures which might be pa.s.sed on her conduct in France; or that she feared to separate her interests from those of her husband, lest she should injure her t.i.tle to the English crown. All these objections are valid when addressed to reason, but pa.s.sion would have challenged stronger arguments."--Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 301.--Blackwood, in his _Martyre de Marie_, mentions, that Mary upon this occasion told her n.o.bility, that "her husband was yet young, and might be brought back to the right path, having left it princ.i.p.ally in consequence of the bad advice of those who were no less his enemies than her's."--"This answer," adds Blackwood, "was far from being agreeable to the Lords, proving to them that her Majesty's present estrangement from her husband was more from the necessity of the times, than because she had ceased to love him."

[6] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 173.--Keith, Preface, p. vii.

[7] The above transaction, in which there is so little mystery, has been converted by Robertson into "a negociation, secretly carried on by Mary, for subverting the Reformed Church." He cannot, it is true, very easily reconcile the "negotiation" with the fact that, "at the very time, she did not scruple publicly to employ her authority towards obtaining for the ministers of that Church a more certain and comfortable subsistence."

"During this year," he tells us, "she issued several proclamations and Acts of Council for that purpose, and readily approved of every scheme which was proposed for the more effectual payment of their stipends." The historian might have inquired a little more closely into the real nature of her correspondence with the Court of Rome, before charging Mary with "falsehood and deceit," and availing himself of the subject to point a moral.

[8] Keith, p. 359.

[9] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 271.

[10] That Darnley was actually absent upon this occasion, we are not quite satisfied. Robertson says he was, on the authority of Le Croc's letter in Keith, preface, p. vii.; and after him, most writers on the subject state the fact as beyond a doubt. All, however, that Le Croc says is this:--"The King had still given out, that he would depart two days before the baptism; but when the time came on, he made no sign of removing at all, only he still kept close within his own apartment. The very day of the baptism, he sent three several times, desiring me either to come and see him, or to appoint him an hour, that he might come to me in my lodgings."

This is no direct evidence that the King was absent from the christening.

Neither does Buchanan furnish us with any; he merely says, with his usual accuracy and love of calumny, that "her lawful husband was not allowed necessaries at the christening; nay, was forbid to come in sight of the amba.s.sadors, who were advised not to enter into discourse with the King, though they were in the same part of the castle the most part of the day."--History, Book XVIII. Nor does Knox say any thing definite upon the subject; but Keith, Crawford, and Spottswood, though not referred to by Robertson, seem to support his opinion. Let the fact, however, be as it may, it is not of great consequence. The erroneousness of the popular belief, that Darnley, during the whole of this time, resided in a citizen's house in the town of Stirling, is more deserving of being pointed out and corrected.

[11] Knox, p. 400.--Keith, Preface, p. vii.

[12] Keith, p. 369.--Knox, p. 400.--The Historie of King James the s.e.xt, p. 5.

[13] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 176.

[14] Melville, p. 192.

[15] The Ruthven here spoken of is the son of the Lord Ruthven, who took so active a part in the murder.

[16] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 175 and 342.

[17] Keith--Preface, p. viii.

[18] Keith, p. 364.

[19] Keith, p. 151.--Laing, vol. ii. p. 76.--Chalmers, vol. ii. p.

268.--Whittaker, in endeavouring to prove (vol. ii. p. 322) that the Catholic Ecclesiastical Courts had never been deprived of their jurisdiction, and that, consequently, there was no _restoration_ of power to the Archbishop of St Andrews, evidently takes an erroneous view of this matter. In direct opposition to such a view, Knox, or his continuator, has the following account of the transaction:--"At the same time, the Bishop of St Andrews, by means of the Earl of Bothwell, procured a writing from the Queen's Majesty, to be obeyed within the Diocess of his Jurisdiction, in all such causes as before, in time of Popery, were used in the Consistory, and, therefore, to discharge the new Commissioners; and for the same purpose, came to Edinburgh in January, having a company of one hundred horses, or more, intending to take possession according to his gift lately obtained. The Provost being advertised thereof by the Earl of Murray, they sent to the Bishop three or four of the Council, desiring him to desist from the said matter, for fear of trouble and sedition that might rise thereupon; whereby he was persuaded to desist at that time."--Knox, p. 403. This account is not quite correct, in so far as the Earl of Murray alone, unsupported by Mary's authority, is described as having diverted the Archbishop from his purpose.

[20] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 199; and vol. ii. p. 176.

[21] Keith, Preface p. viii.

[22] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 165.--Goodall, vol. ii. p. 76.

[23] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 76.--et seq.

[24] Birrel's Dairy, p. 6.--Laing, vol. i. p. 30.

[25] Keith, p. 364.--Anderson, vol. ii. p. 67.--Goodall, vol. ii. p.

244.--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 203.--vol. ii. p. 180, and 271.--Laing, vol. i.

p. 30.--and vol. ii. p. 17.--Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 258, and 283.--Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 237. Whittaker has made several mistakes regarding the House of the Kirk-of-Field. He describes it as much larger than it really was; and, misled by the appearance of a gun-port still remaining in one part of the old wall, and which Arnot supposed had been the postern-door in the gavel of the house, he fixes its situation at too great a distance from the College, and too near the Infirmary. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of a Grandfather," (vol. iii. p. 187.) has oddly enough fallen into the error of describing the Kirk-of-Field, as standing "just _without_ the walls of the city."

[26] Morton's Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 354; and Archibald Douglas's Letter, ibid. p. 363.

[27] Idem.

[28] Lesley's Defence in Anderson, vol. i. p. 75.--Buchanan's History, p.

350.--Laing, vol. ii. p. 34.

[29] Ormiston's Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 322.

[30] Paris's Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 298-9.

[31] Paris's Deposition in Laing, vol. ii. p. 296.

[32] Laing, vol. ii. p. 282 and 370.