Kitabı oku: «Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 1 (of 2)», sayfa 8

Of the Lord James, who was now shortly to become the Earl of Murray, the title by which he is best known in Scottish history, a good deal has already been said. That he must secretly have regretted his sister’s return to Scotland, may be safely concluded, from the facts formerly stated. He was too skilful a politician, however, to betray his disappointment. Had he openly ventured to oppose Mary, the result would have been at all events uncertain, and his own ruin might have been the ultimate consequence. He considered it more prudent to use every means in his power to conciliate her friendship; and wrought so successfully, that before long, he found himself the person of by far the most consequence in the kingdom. Mary, perhaps, trusted too implicitly to his advice, and left too much to his controul; yet it is difficult to see how she could have managed otherwise. It is but fair also to add, that for several years Murray continued to keep his ambition (which, under a show of moderation, was in truth enormous) within bounds. Nor does there appear to be any evidence sufficient to stamp Murray with that deeper treachery and blacker guilt, which some writers have laid to his charge. The time, however, is not yet arrived for considering his conduct in connexion with the darker events of Mary’s reign. The leading fault of his administration is, that it was double-faced. In all matters of importance, he allowed himself to be guided as much by the wishes of Elizabeth, secretly communicated to him, as by those of his own Sovereign. He probably foresaw that, if he ever quarrelled with Mary, it would be through the assistance of the English Queen alone he could hope to retrieve his fortunes. This subservience to Elizabeth, among those in whom she confided, was, indeed, the leading misfortune of Mary’s reign. Had her counsellors been unbiassed, and her subjects undistracted by English intrigue, her prudent conduct would have got the better of the internal dissensions in her kingdom, and she would have governed in peace, perhaps in happiness. But it was Elizabeth’s jealous and narrow-minded policy, to prevent, if possible, this consummation. With infinite art, and, if the term is not debased by its application, with no little ability, she accomplished her wishes, principally through the agency of the ambitious and the self-interested, among Mary’s ministers. One of these, the Earl of Murray, unquestionably was. At the time of which we are writing, he was in his thirty-first year, possessing considerable advantages both of face and person, but of reserved, austere, and rather forbidding manners. Murray’s mother, who was the Lady Margaret Erskine, daughter of Lord Erskine, had married Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven. He had also, as has been mentioned, several illegitimate brothers, particularly Lord John and Lord Robert, and one sister, Jane, who married the Earl of Argyle, and to whom Mary became very sincerely attached.

Associated with the Earl of Murray, both as a leader of the Reformers, and as a servant of Elizabeth, but not allowing his ambitious views to carry him quite so far as the Earl, was William Maitland of Lethington, Mary’s Secretary of State. He was the eldest son of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, and was about five years older than Murray. He had been educated at the University of St Andrews, and had travelled a good deal on the Continent, where he studied civil law. John Knox, in his History, claims the honour of having converted Maitland to the Reformed opinions. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that, after having for some time co-operated with Mary of Guise, he finally deserted her, and continued to act with the Reformers, as Secretary of State, an office to which he had been appointed for life, in 1558. It has been already seen, that a close and confidential intercourse subsisted between him and Cecil; and that he too would have been glad, had Mary’s return to Scotland been prevented. That Maitland possessed an acute and subtle genius, there can be no doubt; that he had cultivated his mind to good purpose, and understood the art of composition as well as any man of the age, is undeniable. That his manners were more polished than those of most of the Scottish nobility, is also true; but, that his talents were of that high and exquisite kind, which Robertson and some other historians have described, does not appear. During his political career, many instances occur, which seem to imply a vacillating and unsteady temperament, a fault which can hardly be forgiven in a statesman.

James Douglas, Earl of Morton, another associate of Murray, was one of the most powerful and least respectable of those who had embraced the Reformation. Restless, factious, crafty, avaricious and cruel, nothing could have saved him from general odium, but his pretended zeal for religion. This was a cloak for many sins; by flattering the vanity of Knox and the other gospel-ministers, he contrived to cover the hollowness of his character, and to patch up a reputation for sanctity. In consequence of the rebellion of the Earl of Angus, his uncle, during the reign of James V., Morton had been obliged to spend several years in England, where he lived in great poverty. But the only effect adversity had produced upon him, was a determination to be more rapacious when he recovered his power. His ambition was of a more contracted and selfish kind than Murray’s, and he had not so cool a head, or so cautious a hand.

The Duke of Chatelherault, Mary’s nearest relation, being advanced in years, had retired from public life. The Earl of Arran, his son, who, it will be remembered, had been induced to propose himself as a husband for Elizabeth, was of a weak and almost crazed intellect. Indeed it was not long before the increasing strength of the malady made it necessary to confine him. He came to Court, however, upon Mary’s arrival, and having been unsuccessful with Elizabeth, chose to fall desperately in love with his own Queen. But Mary had always an aversion to him, originating no doubt in the want of delicacy towards her, which had characterized his negociations with Elizabeth, and confirmed by his own presuming and disagreeable manners. His father’s natural brother, the Archbishop of St Andrews, is the only other member of the family worth mentioning. He was still staunch to the Roman Catholic party; but had of late seen the wisdom of remaining quiet, and though he became rather a favourite with Mary, it does not appear that he henceforth took a very active interest in public affairs.⁴⁴

James Hepburne, Earl of Bothwell, though some of the leading features of his character had hardly shown themselves at the period of which we speak, merits nevertheless, from the part he subsequently acted, especial notice at present. He had succeeded his father in his titles and estates in the year 1556, when he was five or six and twenty years of age. He enjoyed not only large estates, but the hereditary offices of Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Sheriff of Berwick, Haddington and Edinburgh, and Baillie of Lauderdale. With the exception of the Duke of Chatelherault, he was the most powerful nobleman in the southern districts of Scotland. Soon after coming to his titles, he began to take an active share in public business. In addition to his other offices, he was appointed the Queen’s Lieutenant on the Borders, and Keeper of Hermitage Castle, by the Queen Regent, to whom he always remained faithful, in opposition to the Lord James, and what was then termed the English faction. He went over to France on the death of Francis II. to pay his duty to Mary, and on his return to Scotland, was by her intrusted with the discharge of an important commission regarding the Government. Though all former differences were now supposed to have been forgotten, there was not, nor did there ever exist, a very cordial agreement between the Earls of Murray and Bothwell. They were both about the same age, but their dispositions were very different. Murray was self-possessed, full of foresight, prudent and wary. Bothwell was bold, reckless, and extravagant. His youth had been devoted to every species of dissipation; and even in manhood, he seemed more intent on pleasure than on business. This was a sort of life which Murray despised, and perhaps he calculated that Bothwell would never aim at any other. But, though guided by no steady principles, and devoted to licentiousness, Bothwell was nevertheless not the mere man of pleasure. He was all his life celebrated for daring and lawless exploits, and vanity or passion, were motives whose force he was never able to resist. Unlike Murray, who, when he had an end in view, made his advances towards it as cautiously as an Indian hunter, Bothwell dashed right through, as careless of the means by which he was to accomplish his object, as of the consequences that were to ensue. His manner was of that frank, open, and uncalculating kind, which frequently catches a superficial observer. They who did not study him more closely, were apt to imagine that he was merely a blustering, good-natured, violent, headstrong man, whose manners must inevitably have degenerated into vulgarity, had he not been nobly born, and accustomed to the society of his peers. But much more serious conclusions might have drawn by those who had penetration enough to see under the cloak of dissoluteness, in which he wrapped himself and his designs. With regard to his personal appearance, it does not seem to have been remarkably prepossessing. Brantome says, that he was one of the ugliest men he had ever seen, and that his planners were correspondently outré.⁴⁵ Buchanan, who must have known Bothwell well, and who draws his character with more accuracy than was to have been expected from so partial a writer, says, in his “Detection:” – “Was there in him any gift of eloquence, or grace of beauty, or virtue of mind, garnished with the benefits which we call of fortune? As for his eloquence and beauty, we need not make long tale of them, since both they that have seen him can well remember his countenance, his gait, and the whole form of his body, how gay it was; they that have heard him, are not ignorant of his rude utterance and blockishness.” As to Bothwell’s religious opinions, Buchanan remarks very truly, that wavering between the different factions, and despising either side, he counterfeited a love of both.⁴⁶ Such was the man of whom we shall have occasion to say so much in the course of these Memoirs.

In the Lords Ruthven and Lindsay, remained unaltered all the characteristics of the ruder feudal chiefs, rendered still more repulsive by their bigoted zeal in favour of the Reformed opinions. They were men of coarse and contracted minds, fit instigators to villany, or apt tools in the hands of those who were more willing to plan than to execute.

Opposed to all these nobles, was the great lay head of the Catholic party in Scotland, John, Earl of Huntly. His jurisdiction and influence extended over nearly the whole of the north of Scotland, from Aberdeen to Inverness. He was born in 1510, and had been a personal friend and favourite of James V. He ranked in Parliament as the Premier Earl of Scotland, and in 1546, was appointed Chancellor of the kingdom. He was always opposed to the English party, and had been taken prisoner at the battle of Pinkie, fighting against the claims of Edward VI., upon the infant Mary. He made his escape, in 1548, and as a reward for his services and sufferings, obtained, in the following year, a grant of the Earldom of Murray, which, however, he again resigned in 1554. He continued faithful to the Queen Regent till her death. Upon that occasion, we have seen that he and other nobles sent Lesley, with certain proposals, to Mary. He was an honourable man and a good subject, though the termination of his career was a most unfortunate one. The respect which his memory merits, is founded on the conviction, that he had too great a love for his country and sovereign ever to have consented to have made the one little better than tributary to England, or to have betrayed the other into the hands of her deadliest enemy.

Such were the men who were now to become Mary’s associates and counsellors. The names of most of them occur as members of the Privy Council which she constituted shortly after her return. It consisted of the Duke of Chatelherault, the Earl of Huntly, the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Bothwell, the Earl of Errol, Earl Marschall, the Earl of Athol, the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Montrose, the Earl of Glencairn, the Lord Erskine, and the Lord James Stuart. In this Council, the influence of the Lord James, backed as it was by a great majority of Protestant nobles, carried every thing before it.

Elizabeth, finding that Mary had arrived safely in her own country, and had been well received there, lost no time in changing her tone towards the Scottish queen. Her English resident in Scotland, was the celebrated Randolph, whom she kept as a sort of accredited spy at Mary’s court. He has rendered himself notorious by the many letters he wrote to England upon Scottish affairs. He had an acute, inquisitive, and gossiping turn of mind. His style is lively and amusing; and though the office he had to perform is not to be envied, he seems to have entered on it con amore, and with little remorse of conscience. His epistles are mostly preserved, and are valuable from containing pictures of the state of manners in Scotland at the time, not to be found any where else, though not always to be depended on as accurate chronicles of fact. To Randolph, the Queen of England now wrote, desiring him to offer her best congratulations to Mary upon her safe arrival. She sent him also a letter which he was to deliver to Mary, in which she disclaimed ever having had the most distant intention of intercepting her on her voyage. Mary answered Elizabeth’s letter with becoming cordiality. She, likewise, sent Secretary Maitland into England, to remain for some time as her resident at Elizabeth’s Court. She was well aware for what purposes Randolph was ordered to continue in Edinburgh; and said, that as it seemed to be Elizabeth’s wish that he should remain, she was content, but that she would have another in England as crafty as he. Maitland was certainly as crafty, but his craftiness was unfortunately too frequently directed against Mary herself.

CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN KNOX, THE REFORMERS, AND THE TURBULENT NOBLES

Mary had been only a few days in Scotland when she was painfully reminded of the excited and dangerous state of feeling which then prevailed on the important subject of Religion. Her great and leading desire was to conciliate all parties, and to preserve, unbroken, the public peace. With this view she had issued proclamations, charging her subjects to conduct themselves quietly; and announcing her intention to make no alteration in the form of religion as existing in the country at her arrival. Notwithstanding these precautions, the first breach of civil order took place at the very Palace of Holyroodhouse. Mary had intimated her intention to attend the celebration of a solemn mass in her chapel, on Sunday the 24th of August, 1561, the first Sunday she spent in Scotland. The Reformers, as soon as they got the upper hand, had prohibited this service under severe penalties, and these principles of intolerance they were determined to maintain. Mary had not interfered with their mode of worship; but this was not enough; – they considered themselves called upon to interfere with hers. In anticipation of the mass, for which she had given orders, the godly, Knox tells us, met together and said, – “Shall that idol be suffered again to take place within this realm? It shall not.” They even repented that they had not pulled down the chapel itself at the time they had demolished most of the other religious houses; for the sparing of any place where idols were worshipped was, in their opinion, “the preserving the accursed thing.” When Sunday arrived, a crowd collected on the outside of the chapel; and Lord Lindsay, whose bigotry has been already mentioned, called out with fiery zeal, – “The idolatrous priests shall die the death, according to God’s law.” The Catholics were insulted as they entered the chapel, and the tumult increased so much, that they feared to commence the service. At length, the Lord James, whose superior discrimination taught him, that his party, by pushing things to this extremity, were doing their cause more harm than good, stationed himself at the door, and declared he would allow no evil-disposed person to enter. His influence with the godly was such, that they ventured not to proceed to violence against his will. He was a good deal blamed, however, by Knox for his conduct. When the service was concluded, Lord James’s two brothers were obliged to conduct the priests home, as a protection to them from the insults of the people; and in the afternoon, crowds collected in the neighbourhood of the palace, who, by their disloyal language and turbulent proceedings, signified to the Queen their disapprobation, that she had dared to worship her God in the manner which seemed to herself most consistent, both with the revealed and natural law. Many of Mary’s friends, who had accompanied her from France, were so disgusted with the whole of this scene, that they announced their intention of returning sooner than they might otherwise have done. “Would to God,” exclaims Knox, “that altogether, with the mass, they had taken good-night of the realm for ever!”

On the following Sunday, Knox took the opportunity of preaching, what Keith might have termed, another “thundering sermon” against idolatry. In this discourse he declared, that one mass was more fearful to him than ten thousand armed enemies would be, landed in any part of the realm on purpose to suppress the whole religion. No one will deny, that the earlier Reformers of this and all other countries would, naturally and properly, look upon Popish rites with far greater abhorrence than is done by the strictest Protestants of more modern times. Nor is it wonderful that the ablest men among them, (and John Knox was one of those), should have given way so far to the feelings of the age, as to be unable to draw the exact line of distinction between the improvements of the new gospel, and the imperfections of the old. The faith which they established, was of a purer, simpler, and better kind than that from which they were converted. Yet, making all these allowances, there does seem to have been something unnecessarily overbearing and illiberal in the spirit which animated Knox and some of his followers. When contrasted with the mildness of Mary at least, and even with the greater moderation observed in some of the other countries of Europe, where the Reformation was making no less rapid progress, the anti-Catholic ardor of the good people of Scotland must be allowed to have over-stepped considerably the just limits of Christian forbearance. It is useful also to observe the inconsistencies which still existed in the Reformed faith. Whilst the Catholic religion was reprobated, Catholic customs springing out of that religion do not seem to have called forth any censure. On the very day on which Knox preached the sermon already mentioned, a great civic banquet was given by the city of Edinburgh to Mary’s uncles, the Duke Danville, and other of her French friends; and, generally speaking, Sunday was, throughout the country, the favourite day for festivities of all kinds.

The mark of attention paid to her relations pleased Mary, but her pleasure was rendered imperfect, by perceiving how powerful and unlooked for an enemy both she and they had in John Knox. Aware of the liberal manner in which she had treated him and his party, she thought it hard that he should so unremittingly exert his influence to stir up men’s minds against her. That this influence was of no insignificant kind, is attested by very sufficient evidence. Knox was not a mere polemical churchman. His friends and admirers intrusted to him their temporal as well as spiritual interests. He was often selected as an umpire in civil disputes of importance; and persons whom the Town-council had determined to punish for disorderly conduct, were continually requesting his intercession in their behalf. When differences fell out even among the nobility, he was not uncommonly employed to adjust them. He was besides, at that time, the only established clergyman in Edinburgh who taught the Reformed doctrines. There was a minister in the Canongate, and another in the neighbouring parish of St Cuthberts, but Knox was the minister of Edinburgh. He preached in the church of St Giles, which was capable of holding three thousand persons. To this numerous audience he held forth twice every Sunday, and thrice on other days during the week. He was regular too in his attendance at the meetings of the Synod and the General Assembly, and was frequently commissioned to travel through the country to disseminate gospel truth. In 1563, but not till then, a colleague was appointed to him.

Animated by a sincere desire to soften if possible our Reformer’s austere temper, Mary requested that he might be brought into her presence two days after he had delivered his sermon against idolatry. Knox had no objection whatever to this interview. To have it granted him at all would show his friends the importance attached to his character and office; and from the manner in which he determined to carry himself through it, he hoped to strengthen his reputation for bold independence of sentiment, and undeviating adherence to his principles. This was so far well; but Knox unfortunately mingled rudeness with his courage, and stubbornness with his consistency.

Mary opened the conversation by expressing her surprise that he should have formed so very unfavourable an opinion of herself; and requested to know what could have induced him to commence his calumnies against her so far back as 1559, when he published his book upon the “monstrous government of women.”⁴⁷ Knox answered, that learned men in all ages considered their judgments free, and that, if these judgments sometimes differed from the common judgment of mankind, they were not to blame. He then ventured to compare his “First Blast of the Trumpet” to Plato’s work “On the Commonwealth,” observing, with much self-complacency, that both these books contained many new sentiments. He added, that what he had written was directed most especially against Mary – “that wicked Jezabel of England.” The Queen, perceiving that this was a mere subterfuge, said, “Ye speak of women in general.” Knox confessed that he did so, but again went the length of assuring her, though the assurance seems to involve a contradiction, that he had said nothing “intended to trouble her estate.”

Satisfied with this concession, Mary proceeded to ask, why he could not teach the people a new religion without exciting them to hold in contempt the authority of their Sovereign? Knox found it necessary to answer this question in a somewhat round-about manner. “If all the seed of Abraham,” said he, “should have been of the religion of Pharaoh, what religion should there have been in the world? Or if all men, in the days of the Roman Emperors, should have been of the religion of the Roman Emperors, what religion should have been on the face of the earth? Daniel and his fellows were subject to Nebuchadnezzar and unto Darius, and yet they would not be of their religion.” “Yea,” replied Mary promptly, “but none of these men raised the sword against their princes.” “Yet you cannot deny that they resisted,” said Knox, refining a little too much; “for those who obey not the commandment given them, do in some sort resist.” “But yet,” said the Queen, perceiving the quibble, “they resisted not with the sword.” The Reformer felt that he had been driven into a corner, and determined to get out of it at whatever cost. “God, Madam,” said he, “had not given unto them the power and the means.” “Think ye,” asked Mary, “that subjects having the power may resist their princes?” “If princes exceed their bounds, Madam,” said Knox, evidently departing from the point, “no doubt they may be resisted even by power.” He proceeded to fortify this opinion with arguments of no very loyal kind; and Mary, overcome by a rudeness and presumption she had been little accustomed to, was for some time silent. Nay, Randolph, in one of his letters, affirms that he “knocked so hastily upon her heart that he made her weep.” At length she said, “I perceive then that my subjects shall obey you, and not me, and will do what they please, and not what I command; and so must I be subject to them, and not they to me.” Knox answered, that a subjection unto God and his Church was the greatest dignity that flesh could enjoy upon the face of the earth, for it would raise it to everlasting glory. “But you are not the Church that I will nourish,” said Mary; “I will defend the Church of Rome, for it is, I think, the true Church of God.” Knox’s coarse and discourteous answer shows that he was alike ignorant of the delicacy with which, in this argument, he should have treated a lady, and of the respect a queen was entitled to demand. “Your will, Madam,” said he, “is no reason; neither doth your thought make the Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. Wonder not, Madam, that I call Rome a harlot, for that Church is altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication, both in doctrine and manners.” Whilst this speech must have deeply wounded the feelings of Mary, a sincere Catholic as she was, it cannot entitle the Reformer to any praise on the score of its bravery and independence. Knox knew that the whole country would, in a few days, be full of his conference with the Queen. By yielding to her, he had nothing to gain; and, as his reputation was his dearest possession, he hoped to increase it by an unmanly display of his determined zeal. Mary, perceiving what sort of a man she had to deal with, soon afterwards broke off the conversation.⁴⁸

On the same day that the Queen gave Knox this audience, she made her first public entry into Edinburgh. She rode up the Canongate and High Street, to the Castle, where a banquet had been prepared for her. She was greeted, as she passed along, with every mark of respect and loyalty; and pains had been taken to give to the whole procession, as striking and splendid an air as possible. The Town had issued proclamations, requiring the citizens to appear in their best attire, and advising the young men to assume a uniform, that they might make “the convoy before the court more triumphant.” When Mary left the castle after dinner, on her way back, a pageant which had been prepared was exhibited on the Castle Hill. The Reformers could not allow this opportunity to pass, without reminding her that she was now in a country where their authority was paramount. The greater part of this pageant, represented the terrible vengeance of God upon idolaters. It was even, at one time, intended to have had a priest burned in effigy; but the Earl of Huntly declared, he would not allow so gross an insult to be offered to his sovereign.

Soon after paying this compliment to the City of Edinburgh, Mary determined upon making a progress through the country, that she and her subjects might become better acquainted with each other. She made this progress upon horseback, accompanied by a pretty numerous train. There appears at the time to have been only one wheeled carriage in Scotland. It was a chariot, (as it is called in the treasurer’s books), probably of a rude enough construction, which Margaret of England brought with her when she married James IV. Mary, no doubt, knew that it would have been rather adventurous to have attempted travelling on the Scotch roads of that day in so frail and uncertain a vehicle. It is not, however, to be supposed, that a Queen such as Mary, with her Lords and Ladies well-mounted around her, could pass through her native country without being the object of universal admiration, even without the aid of so wonderful a piece of mechanism as a coach or a chariot. Her first stage was to the palace at Linlithgow. Here she remained a day or two, and then proceeded to Stirling. On the night of her arrival there, she made a very narrow escape. As she lay in bed asleep, a candle, that was burning beside her, set fire to the curtains; and had the light and heat not speedily awakened her, when she immediately exerted her usual presence of mind, she might have been burned to death. The populace said at the time, that this was the fulfilment of a very old prophecy, that a Queen should be burned at Stirling. It was only the bed, however, not the Queen that was burned, so that the prophet must have made a slight mistake. On the Sunday she spent at Stirling, the Lord James, finding perhaps, that his former apparent defence of the mass, had hurt his reputation among the Reformers, corrected the error by behaving with singular impropriety in the Royal chapel. He was assisted by the Lord Justice General, the Earl of Argyle, in conjunction with whom he seems to have come to actual blows with the priests. This affair was considered good sport by many. “But there were others,” says Randolph, alluding probably to Mary, “that shed a tear or two.” “It was reserved,” Chalmer’s remarks, “for the Prime Minister and the Justice General, to make a riot in the house which had been dedicated to the service of God, and to obstruct the service in the Queen’s presence.”⁴⁹

Leaving Stirling, Mary spent a night at Lesly Castle, the seat of the Earl of Rothes, a Catholic nobleman. On the 16th of September she entered Perth. She was everywhere welcomed with much apparent satisfaction; but in the midst of their demonstrations of affection, her subjects always took care to remind her that they were Presbyterians, and that she was a Papist. In the very pious town of Perth, pageants greeted her arrival somewhat similar to those which had been exhibited to her on the Castle Hill at Edinburgh. Mary was not a little affected by observing this constant determination to wound her feelings. In riding through the streets of Perth, she became suddenly faint, and was carried from her horse to her lodging. Her acute sensibility often produced similar effects upon her health, although the cause was not understood by the unrefined multitude. With St Andrews, the seat of the Commendatorship of the Lord James, she seems to have been most pleased, and remained there several days. She returned to Edinburgh by the end of September, passing, on the way, through Falkland, where her father had died. Knox was much distressed at the manifestation of the popular feeling in favour of Mary during this journey. He consoles himself by saying, that she polluted the towns through which she passed with her idolatry; and in allusion to the accident at Stirling, remarks, “Fire followed her very commonly on that journey.”⁵⁰