manner and behaviour. The youthful Francis, to whom she was betrothed, and was soon to be united in wedlock, was about her own age, and they had been playmates from early years there appears also to have grown up a mutual affection between them; but the dauphin had little of her vivacity, and was altogether considerably her inferior both in mental endowments and personal appearance. The marriage, which took place on the 24th of April, 1558, was celebrated with great pomp; and when the dauphin, taking a ring from his finger, presented it to the cardinal Bourbon, archbishop of Rouen, who, pronouncing the benediction, placed it on the finger of the lovely and youthful bride, the vaulted roof of the cathedral rung with the shouts and congratulations of the assembled multitude.

The solemnities being over, the married pair retired to one of their princely retreats for the summer; but that season was hardly gone when, a vacancy having occurred on the throne of England by the death of Queen Mary, claims were put forth on behalf of the queen of Scots through her grandmother, who was eldest daughter of King Henry VII. of England; and notwithstanding Elizabeth had ascended the throne, and was, like her sister Mary (both daughters of Henry VIII.), queen both de facto and by the declaration of the parliament of England, yet this claim for the Scottish princess was made and continued to be urged with great pertinacity by her ambitious uncles the princes of Lorraine. On every occasion on which the dauphin and dauphiness appeared in public, they were ostentatiously greeted as the king and queen of England; the English arms were engraved upon their plate, embroidered on their banners, and painted on their furniture; and Mary's own favourite device at the time was, the two crowns of France and Scotland, with the motto Aliamque moratur, meaning that of England. Henri IL died in July, 1559, and in September of the same year Francis was solemnly crowned at Rheims. Mary was now at the height of her splendour; it was doomed however to be only of short continuance. In June, 1560, her mother died; and in December of the same year, her husband, who had been wasting away for some months, expired. By this latter event, Catherine de' Medici rose again into power in the French court, and Mary, who did not relish being second where she had been the first, immediately determined on quitting France and returning to her native country. The queen of England however interposed; and because Mary would not abandon all claim to the English throne, refused to grant her a free passage, being moved to this piece of discourtesy not less perhaps by envy than by jealousy. Mary notwithstanding resolved to go, and at length, after repeated delays, still lingering on the soil where fortune had smiled upon her, she reached Calais. Here she bade adieu to her attendants, and sailed for Scotland; but as long as the French coast remained in view, she continued involuntarily to exclaim, 'Farewell, France Farewell, beloved country!' She landed at Leith on the 19th August, 1561, in the 19th year of her age, and after an absence from Scotland of nearly 13 years. She was now, in the language of Robertson, "a stranger to her subjects, without experience, without allies, and almost without a friend."

A great change had taken place in Scotland since Mary was last in the country. The Roman Catholic religion was then supreme; and under the direction of Cardinal Beatoun the Romish clergy displayed a fierceness of intolerance which seemed to aim at nothing short of the utter extirpation of every seed of dissent and reform. The same causes however which gave strength to the ecclesiastics gave strength also, though more slowly, to the great body of the people; and at length, after the repeated losses of Flodden and Fala, and Solway Moss and Pinkey,which, by the fall of nearly the whole lay nobility and leading men of the kingdom, brought all classes within the influence of public events,-the energies, physical and mental, of the entire nation were drawn out, and under the guidance of the reformer

Knox expended themselves with the fury of awakened indignation upon the whole fabric of the ancient religion. The work of destruction was just completed, and the Presbyterian government established on the ruins of the Roman Catholic, when Mary returned to her native land. She knew little of all this, and had been taught in France to shrink at the avowal of Protestant opinions: her habits and sentiments were therefore utterly at variance with those of her subjects; and, nurtured in the lap of ease, she was wholly unprepared for the shock which was inevitably to result from her being thrown among them.

Accordingly the very first Sunday after her arrival she commanded a solemn mass to be celebrated in the chapel of the palace; and as might have been expected an uproar ensued, the servants of the chapel were insulted and abused, and had not some of the lay nobility of the Protestant party interposed, the riot might have become general. The next Sunday Knox had a thundering sermon against idolatry, and in his discourse he took occasion to say that a single mass was, in his estimation, more to be feared than ten thousand armed men. Upon this, Mary sent for the reformer, desiring to have an interview with him. The interview took place, as well as one or two subsequent ones from a like cause; but the only result was to exhibit the parties more plainly at variance with each other. In one of these fruitless conferences the young queen was bathed in tears before his stern rebukes. Her youth however, her beauty and accomplishments, and her affability, interested many in her favour; and as she had from the first continued the government in the hands of the Protestants, the general peace of the country remained unbroken. A remarkable proof of the popular favour which she had won, appeared in the circumstances attending her marriage with Darnley. Various proposals had been made to her from different quarters; but at length she gave up all thoughts of a foreign alliance, and her affections became fixed on her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the youthful heir of the noble house of Lennox, to whom she was united on Sunday, 29th July, 1565, the ceremony of marriage being performed in the chapel of Holyrood House, according to the rites of the Romish church. Whether the queen had any right to choose a husband without consent of Parliament, was in that age, as Robertson observes, a matter of some dispute; but that she had no right to confer upon him, by her private authority, the title and dignity of king, or by a simple proclamation invest him with the character of a sovereign, was beyond all doubt yet so entirely did she possess the favourable regard of the nation, that notwithstanding the clamours of the malecontents, her conduct in this respect produced no symptom of general dissatisfaction. The queen's marriage was particularly obnoxious to Queen Elizabeth, whose jealous eye had never been withdrawn from her rival. Knox also did not look favourably on it. Nevertheless the current of popular opinion ran decidedly in Mary's favour, and it was even remarked that the prosperous situation of her affairs began to work some change in favour of her religion.

This popularity however was the result of adventitious circumstances only. There existed no real sympathy of opinion between Mary and the great body of her people; and whatever led to the manifestation of her religious sentiments dissolved in the same degree the fascination which her other qualities had created. It is in this way we may account for the assistance given to Darnley in the assassination of Rizzio-an attendant on Mary, who seems to have come in place of Chatelard. The latter was a French poet who sailed in Mary's retinue when she came over from the Continent; and having gained the queen's attention by his poetical effusions, he proceeded, in the indulgence of a foolish attachment for her, to a boldness and audacity of behaviour which demanded at last the interposition of the law, and he was condemned and executed. Rizzio, a Piedmontese by birth, came to Edinburgh

in the train of the ambassador from Savoy, a year or so before Chatelard's execution. He was skilled in music, had a polished and ready wit, and, like Chatelard, wrote with ease in French and Italian. His first employment at court was in his character of a musician; but Mary soon advanced him to be her French secretary; and in this situation he was conceived to possess an influence over the queen which was equally hateful to Darnley and the Reformers, though on very different grounds. Both therefore concurred in his destruction, and he was assassinated accordingly. Darnley afterwards disclaimed all concern in the conspiracy; but it was plain the queen did not believe and could not forgive him; and having but few qualities to secure her regard, her growing contempt of him terminated in disgust. In the meantime the well-known Earl of Bothwell was rapidly advancing in the queen's favour, and at length no business was concluded, no grace bestowed, without his assent and participation. Meanwhile also Mary bore a son to Darnley; and after great preparations for the event, the baptism of the young prince was performed according to the rites of the Romish church. Darnley himself was soon after seized with the smallpox, or some dangerous distemper, the nature and cause of which are not very clear. He was at Glasgow when he was taken ill, having retired thither to his father somewhat hastily and unexpectedly; Mary was not with him, nor did she visit him for a fortnight. After a short stay they returned to Edinburgh together, when Darnley was lodged, not in the palace of Holyrood, as heretofore, but in the house of Kirk of Field, a mansion standing by itself in an open and solitary part of the town. Ten days after, the house was blown up by gunpowder, and Darnley and his servants buried in the ruins. Whether Mary knew of the intended murder is not certain, and different views of the circumstances have been taken by different historians. The author of the horrid deed was Bothwell, and the public voice was unanimous in his reprobation. Bothwell was brought before the privy-council for the crime; but in consequence of the shortness of the notice, Lennox, his accuser, did not appear. The trial nevertheless proceeded, or rather the verdict and sentence; for without a single witness being examined, Bothwell was acquitted. He was upon this not only continued in all his influence and employments, but he actually attained the great end which he had in view by the perpetration of the foul act. This was no other than to marry the queen herself, which he did in three months after; having in the interval, met the queen, and carried her off a prisoner to his castle of Dunbar, and also raised a process of divorce against the lady Bothwell, his wife, on the ground of consanguinity, and got a decree in the cause just nine days before the marriage. Before the marriage, also, Mary created Bothwell Duke of Orkney; and the marriage itself was solemnized at Holyrood House by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, according to the forms both of the Romish and Protestant religions.

Public indignation could no longer be restrained. The nobles rose against Bothwell and Mary, who fled before an armed and indignant people from fortress to fortress. At length, after they had collected some followers, a pitched battle near Carbery Hill was about to ensue, when Mary abandoned Bothwell, and threw herself on the mercy of her subjects. They conducted her first to Edinburgh, and thence to the castle of Lochleven, where, as she still persisted to regard Bothwell as her husband, it was determined she should at once abdicate in favour of the prince, her son James. Instruments of abdication to that effect were accordingly prepared, and she was at last constrained to affix her signature to them; upon which the prince was solemnly crowned at Stirling, 29th July, 1567, when little more than a year old. Mary continued a prisoner at Lochleven; but by the aid of friends, in less than twelve months, she effected her escape, and collected a considerable army. The battle of Langside ensued, where she was completely routed; upon this she fled

towards Galloway, and thence passed into England, hoping to secure the favour of Elizabeth. In this however she was mistaken. Elizabeth refused her an audience, but declared her readiness to act as umpire between her and her subjects. Mary would not yield to this, or consent to be regarded in any other light than as queen of Scotland. The consequence was, that being now in the hands of her great rival, Elizabeth contrived to detain her a captive in her dominions till the end of the year 1586,—a period of about nineteen years,-when she was accused of being accessary to Babington's conspiracy against the queen of England.

173.-BABINGTON'S CONSPIRACY, AND EXECUTION

OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

GOLDSMITH.

John Ballard, a popish priest, who had been bred in the English seminary at Rheims, resolved to compass the death of a queen whom he considered as the enemy of his religion; and, with that gloomy resolution, he came over to England in the disguise of a soldier, with the assumed name of captain Fortescue. He bent his endeavours to bring about at once the project of an assassination, an insurrection, and an invasion. The first person he addressed himself to was Anthony Babington, of Dethick, in the county of Derby, a young gentleman of good family, and possessed of a very plentiful fortune. This person had been long remarkable for his zeal in the catholic cause, and his attachment to the captive queen. He, therefore, came readily into the plot, and procured the concurrence and assistance of some other associates in this dangerous undertaking; Barnwell, a person of a noble family in Ireland; Charnock, a gentleman of Lancashire; Abington, whose father had been cofferer to the household; and, chief of all, John Savage, a man of desperate fortune, who had served in the Low Countries, and came into England under a vow to destroy the queen. He indeed did not seem to desire any associate in the bold enterprise, and refused for some time to permit any to share with him in what he esteemed his greatest glory. He challenged the whole to himself; and it was with some difficulty that he was induced to depart from his preposterous ambition. The next step was to apprise Mary of the conspiracy formed in her favour; and this they effected by conveying their letters to her (by means of a brewer that supplied the family with ale), through a chink in the wall of her apartment. In these, Babington informed her of a design laid for a foreign invasion, the plan of an insurrection at home, the scheme for her deliverance, and the conspiracy for assassinating the usurper, by six noble gentlemen, as he termed them, all of them his private friends, who, from the zeal which they bore to the catholic cause and her majesty's service, would undertake the tragical execution. To these Mary replied, that she approved highly of the design; that the gentlemen might expect all the rewards which it should ever be in her power to confer; and that the death of Elizabeth was a necessary circumstance, previous to any further attempts either for her deliverance or the intended insurrection.

Such was the scheme laid by the conspirators; and nothing seemed so certain as its secresy and its success. But they were all miserably deceived; the active and sagacious ministers of Elizabeth were privy to it in every stage of its growth, and only retarded their discovery till the meditated guilt was ripe for punishment and conviction. Ballard was actually attended by one Maude, a catholic priest, who was a spy in pay with Walsingham, secretary of state. One Polly, another of his spies, had found means to insinuate himself among the conspirators, and to give an exact account of their proceedings. Soon after, one Giffard, a priest, came

over, and, discovering the whole conspiracy to the bottom, made a tender of his service to Walsingham. It was he that procured the letters to be conveyed through the wall to the queen, and received her answers; but he had always taken care to shew them to the secretary of state, who had them deciphered, and took copies of them all.

The plot being thus ripe for execution, and the evidence against the conspirators incontestable, Walsingham resolved to suspend their punishment no longer. A warrant was accordingly issued out for the apprehending of Ballard; and this giving the alarm to Babington and the rest of the conspirators, they covered themselves with various disguises, and endeavoured to keep themselves concealed. But they were soon discovered, thrown into prison, and brought to trial. In their examination they contradicted each other, and the leaders were obliged to make a full confession of the truth. Fourteen were condemned and executed, some of whom died confessing their crime.

The execution of these wretched men only prepared the way for one of still greater importance, in which a captive queen was to submit to the unjust decisions of those who had no right but that of power, to condemn her. Though all England was acquainted with the detection of Babington's conspiracy, every avenue to the unfortunate Mary was so strictly guarded, that she remained in utter ignorance of the whole matter. But her astonishment was equal to her anguish, when Sir Thomas Gorges, by Elizabeth's order, came to inform her of the fate of her unhapqy confederates. She was at that time mounted on horseback, going to hunt; and was not permitted to return to her former place of abode, but conducted from one gentleman's house to another, till she was lodged in Fotheringay castle, in Northamptonshire, where the last scene of her miserable tragedy was to be performed.

The council of England was divided in opinion about the measures to be taken against the queen of Scots. Some members proposed that, as her health was very infirm, her life might be shortened by close confinement; and the earl of Leicester advised that she should be despatched by poison; but the majority insisted on her being put to death by legal process. Accordingly a commission was issued for forty-one peers, with five judges, or the major part of them, to try and pass sentence upon Mary daughter and heir of James the Fifth, king of Scotland, commonly called queen of Scots, and dowager of France.

Thirty-six of these commissioners, arriving at the castle of Fotheringay, presented her with a letter from Elizabeth, commanding her to submit to a trial for her late conspiracy. Mary perused the letter with great composure, and, as she had long foreseen the danger that hung over her, received the intelligence without emotion or astonishment. She said, however, that she wondered the queen of England should command her as a subject, who was an independent sovereign, and a queen like herself. She would never, she said, stoop to any condescension which would lessen her dignity, or prejudice the claims of her posterity. The laws of England, she observed, were unknown to her; she was destitute of counsel; nor could she conceive who were to be her peers, as she had but one equal in the kingdom. She added, that, instead of enjoying the protection of the laws of England, which she had hoped to obtain, she had been confined in prison ever since her arrival in the kingdom, so that she derived neither benefit nor security from them. When the commissioners pressed her to submit to the queen's pleasure, otherwise they would proceed against her as contumacious, she declared that she would rather suffer a thousand deaths than own herself a subject to any prince on earth: that, however, she was ready to vindicate herself in a full and free parliament; as, for ought she knew, this meeting of commissioners was devised against her life on purpose to take it away with a pretext of justice. She exhorted them to consult their own con