“long years!—it tries the thrilling frame to bear, and eagle-spirit of a child of song— long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong; and the mind’s canker in its savage mood, when the impatient thirst of light and air scorches the heart; and the abhorred grate, marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain with a hot sense of heaviness and pain!”—lament of tasso.
eighteen long years of solitary grief—of that most wretched sickness that arises, even to a proverb, from hope too long deferred—had already passed away since, in the fatal action of langside, the wretched mary had for the last time seen her banner fall, and her adherents scattered like chaff before the wind by the determined valor of her foes. all, all was lost! it had been the work of months to draw that gallant army to a head, of which so many now lay stark in their curdled gore; while the miserable remnant were hunted like beasts of chase, to perish, when taken, upon the ignominious scaffold. and now, of all the noble gentlemen who had thronged to her bridle-rein on that fatal morning, high in hope as in valor, the merest had escaped to guard the person of that sovereign whom they loved so truly, and in behalf of whom they had endured so deeply. her crown was lost for ever; nor her crown only, but her country.
of all the glorious gifts which, at an earlier period of her eventful life, nature appeared to shower upon her head, freedom alone remained. the palfrey which bore her from the battle-field was now the sole possession of the titular monarch of three fair domains; the wild moors, over which she fled in desperate haste, her only refuge from persecutors the most unrelenting365 that ever joined sagacity to hatred in the performance of their plans; the dozen gallant hearts who rallied yet around their queen, beneath the guiding of the stout and loyal herries, her only court, her only subjects. still she was free; and to one who for months before had never seen the blessed light of heaven but its lustre was sullied by the dim panes through which it forced its way, to lend no solace to her captivity, the fresh breeze which eddied across the purple moorlands of her native land had still the power to impart a sense of pleasure, fleeting, it is true, and doubtful, but still, in all its forms and essentials, absolute and real pleasure.
at the full distance of sixty scottish miles from the accursed field which had witnessed the downfall of all her hopes, worn out in body and depressed in spirit, she paused to take, in the abbey of dundrennan, a few hours of that repose without which, even in the most trying circumstances, the mind can not exist in its undiminished powers. at this juncture, it appeared to those about her person that mary was utterly deserted by that wonderful sagacity, that clear insight into the motives of others, which had ever constituted one of the strongest points of her character. the chief object of the faithful few, who had clung to her with unblenching steadiness through this her last misfortune, had been to bear her in security to some point whence she might effect her escape to the sunny shores of that land wherein she had passed the happiest, the only truly happy, hours of her checkered existence. queen-dowager herself of france, knit by the closest ties of interest and friendship to the court of versailles—to which, moreover, scotland had ever been considered an auxiliar and well-affected state, no less than an easy pretext for hostilities against its natural antagonist—she had been there secure, not of safety only, but of the full enjoyment of rank, and wealth, and dignity, and pleasure, if indeed pleasure were yet within the reach of one who had herself366 suffered, and who had beheld all those that loved her suffer, as mary the last queen of scotland. inclination, it would have seemed, no less than policy, should have urged the hapless sovereign to the measure advocated by each and all of her devoted train; for but a few years had flown since she had felt all those pangs which render exile to a delicate and sensitive mind the heaviest of human punishments, on parting from the fair shores of that land, which even then perhaps some prophetic spirit whispered, she must behold no more! herries, the bold and loyal herries, bent his knee, stiffened with years of toil and exposure, to sue of his adored mistress the only boon of all his labors, all his sufferings, that she would avoid the fatal soil of england.
“remember,” he had cried, in tones which seemed in after-days of more than human foresight—“remember how the false and wily woman, who sways the sceptre of england with absolute and undisputed sway—remember, i say, with what unflinching determination she has thwarted you in every wish of your heart; with what depth of secret enmity she has at all times, and in all places, cherished your foes, and injured all who were most dear to you! and wherefore, oh wherefore, my beloved mistress, wherefore should her course of action now be altered, when she has no longer a powerful queen with whom to strive, but rather a fugitive rival to oppress? elizabeth of england—believe me, noble lady—has marked this crisis as it drew nigh, with that unerring instinct which directs the blood-raven to its destined victim while life yet revels in its veins; and surely, so surely as you enter her accursed eyry, shall you feel her vulture-talons busy about your heartstrings! for years, my noble mistress, has herries been your servant; at council or in field, with ready hand and true word, has he ever served the stuart. it becomes me not to boast, yet will i speak: when seyton, and ogilvy, and huntley, were dismayed—when367 hamilton himself hung back—herries was ever nigh.”
“ever, ever true and loyal!” cried the hapless queen, touched even beyond the consideration of her own calamities by the speech of the brave veteran—“my noble, noble herries, and bitter, most bitter has been the reward of truth and valor; but so has it ever been with mary. i tell thee, baron, for me to love a bird, a tree, a flower, much less a creature such as thou art, an honorable, upright, and devoted friend, was but that creature’s doom: all whom i have loved have i destroyed! alas, alas for the undaunted spirits that were severed from the forms they filled so nobly, on that dark battle-field!”
“think not of them, my liege—mourn not for them,” interrupted the baron. “knightly, and in their duty, have they fallen. their last blow was stricken, and their last slogan shouted, in a cause the fairest that ever hallowed warrior’s blade. they are at rest, and they are happy. but think of those who, having lost their earthly all to save thee, would yet esteem themselves pre-eminently happy so they might see thee free and in security. oh! hear me, mary—hear for the first, last time—hear the prayer of herries! go not, go not—as you love life, and dignity, and liberty—as you would prove your faith to those who have never been faithless to you—go not to this accursed england!”
but it had all been vain. the fiat had gone forth, and reason had deserted, as it would seem, the destined victim. no arguments, however lucid—no fears, however natural, could divert her from this fatal project. with the choice of good and evil fairly set before her—honor, and rank, and liberty, in france, a prison and an axe in england—deliberately and resolutely she rushed upon her fate! and when she might have found a willing asylum in the arms of kindred monarchs, she yielded herself to the tender mercies of a rival queen, a rival beauty; a fierce, unforgiving, unfeminine foe; a being who, as368 she aped the name, so also displayed the attributes and nature of the lion! how could mary—a professed foe, a claimant of her crown, a woman fairer, and of brighter parts even than her own—a mother, while she was but a barren stake—how could mary, with so many causes to awaken her deathless hostility, hope for generosity or for mercy from a queen who could even sacrifice without a pang her inclinations to her interest; whose favors but marshalled those on whom they fell to the scaffold and the block; whose dearest favorites, whose most faithful servants had fallen, one by one, beneath the headsman’s axe; who had proved herself, in short, a worthy heiress to the soulless tyrant from whom she had sprung, by the violence of her uncurbed passions, and by the hereditary pleasure with which, through all her long and glorious reign (glorious, as it is termed, for with the multitude the ends will ever justify the means, and foreign conquest hallow domestic tyranny), she rioted in innocent and noble blood!
the rubicon had been passed—and scarcely passed, before mary had discovered the entire justice, no less than the deep love, manifested by the parting words of herries. as her last sovereignty, she had stepped aboard the barge that was to waft her from her discontented and ungrateful subjects to a free and happy home, as she too fondly hoped, in merry england. girt with the bills and bows which had battened so deeply and so often in the gore of scottishmen, gallantly dressed, and himself of gallant bearing, lowther, the sheriff of the marches, received the royal fugitive. with every mark of deference that manly strength is bound to show to female weakness, with all the chivalrous respect a good knight is compelled by his order to display to innocence and beauty—nay, more, with all the profound humility of a subject before his queen—did he conduct the hapless lady aboard his bark. yet, while the words of welcome were upon his tongue, while he dwelt with loyal eagerness369 on the sincerity and love of england’s elizabeth toward her sister-queen—by his refusal to admit above a limited and trifling portion of her train to share the asylum of their mistress, he had already drawn the distinction between the royal captive and the royal guest.
and so it afterward appeared. in vain did mary petition as a favor, or claim as a right, an interview with her relentless persecutor. she should have known that even if elizabeth could, by her constitution, have pardoned her assumption of the style or titles of the english monarchy, she could yet never overlook, never forgive her surpassing loveliness, her elegant accomplishments, her brilliant wit, her more than mortal grace! she might have condescended to despise the rival queen—she could only stoop to hate the rival beauty. from castle to castle had she been transferred, with no regard for either her rank or convenience. from prison to prison, from warder to warder, had she been conveyed, as each abode seemed in turn insecure to the lynx-eyed jealousy of her tormentor, or every jailer in turn sickened at the loathsome weariness of his hateful and degrading employment. no better proof—if proof were needed—could be adduced of elizabeth’s tyrannical and cruel despotism, than the unconstitutional authority by which she forced noble after noble, the very pride and flower of the english aristocracy, to change their castles into prisonhouses, their households into warders and turnkeys, their very lives into a state of anxious misery, which could only be surpassed by that of the unhappy prisoner they were, so contrary to their will, compelled to guard.
after the base mockery of the trial instituted at york, but a few months after her arrival—that trial wherein a brother was brought forward to convict his sister of adultery and murder—that trial which, though it pronounced the prisoner unconvicted, yet inflicted on her all the penalties of conviction—it scarcely370 appears that mary ever entertained a hope of obtaining her liberty, much less the station which was her right, from either the justice or the generosity of the lion-queen. in vain had every course been tried, in vain had every human means been employed. in vain had scotland sued; in vain had france and spain threatened, and even prepared to act upon their threats. for mary there was no amelioration, no change!
from day to day, from year to year, her hopes had fallen away one by one. her spirits, so buoyant and elastic once, had now subsided into a heavy, settled gloom; her very charms were but a wreck and shadow of their former glory. for a time she had endeavored, by all those beautiful occupations of the pencil, the needle, or the lyre, in which none had equalled her in her young days of happiness, to while away the deep and engrossing weariness which by long endurance becomes even worse than pain. for a time she had been permitted to vary the monotony of her domestic labors by her favorite exercises in the field and forest. surrounded by a train of mail-clad horsemen, warders with bended bows and loaded arquebuses, she had a few times been allowed to ride forth into the free woodland, and to forget, amid the gay sights and heart-stirring sounds of the chase, the cares that were heavy at her heart. but how should that heart forget, when at every turn it encountered the haggard eye of the anxious keeper—anxious, for the slightest relaxation of his duty were certain death! how should the ear thrill to the enlivening music of the pack, or to the wild flourish of the bugles, when the clash of steel announced on every side the minions of her oppressor? how should the gallop over the velvet turf, beneath the luxuriant shadow of the immemorial oaks, convey aught of freshness to the spirit that was about to return thence to chambers no less a dungeon for being decked with the mockeries of state, than though they had presented to the eye those common accessories371 of bar, and grate, and chain, which they failed not to set before the mind? after a while, even these liberties were curtailed! it seemed too much of freedom, that the titular sovereign of three realms—the cynosure of every eye, the beauty at whose very name every heart thrilled and every pulse bounded—should be permitted to taste the common air of heaven, even when hemmed in, without the possibility of escape, by guards armed to the teeth, and sworn to exercise those arms, not only against all who should attempt the rescue, but against the miserable captive herself, should she attempt to profit by any efforts made for her release!
and efforts were made—efforts by the best and noblest of the british peerage—by men whose names were almost sufficient to turn defeat to victory and shame to glory. norfolk and westmoreland, and a hundred others, of birth scarcely less distinguished, and of virtues no less brilliant, revolted from the soul-debasing despotism of elizabeth, and attempted, now by secret stratagem, and now by open warfare, to force the victim from the clutches of the lion. with the deepest regret did mary witness the destruction of so many noble spirits, and with yet deeper fury did elizabeth behold star after star of her boasted galaxy of nobles shoot madly from their spheres in pursuit of a meteor. bitter were her feelings, and deadly was her vengeance. the bloody reign of mary might almost have been deemed to have returned, as day by day the death-bells tolled, as the traitor’s gate admitted another and another occupant to that above, whence the only egress was by the axe and scaffold. nor was this all. a thousand wild and fearful rumors began to float among the multitude. the perils of a catholic insurrection, the intended assassination of the queen, the establishment of a papistical dynasty upon the throne of england, were topics of ordinary conversation, but of no ordinary excitement. at one time it was reported that a spanish fleet was372 actually in the channel; at another that the duke of guise, with a vast army, had effected a landing on the kentish coast, and might hourly be expected in the capital. nor is it uncharitable to suppose that these reports were designedly spread abroad, this excitement purposely kept alive, by the wily ministers of elizabeth. that the despot-queen had long ago determined on the slaughter of her rival, is certain; nor have we any just cause for doubting that bacon and walsingham were men as fully capable of goading the terrors of a multitude into fury as was their mistress of recommending the private murder of her hapless victim!
it was at this period that popular madness was raised to its utmost height by the detection of babington’s conspiracy. rich, young, brave, and romantic; stimulated by the hope of gaining the hand of mary, forgetful that the personal loveliness for which she had once been conspicuous must long have yielded to the joint influence of misery and time; and deceived by the fatal maxim, then too much in vogue, that means are justified by ends—this gentleman resolved on bringing about the liberation of the scottish by the murder of the english queen. the affair was not looked upon as so atrocious, but that twelve associates were easily found for the execution of the plot; and it is barely possible that, had they proceeded at once to action, their desperate effort might have been crowned with success. they delayed—they talked—they were discovered! beneath the protracted agonies of the question, one was found of these convicted traitors who asserted the privity of mary to the whole affair; and at once, as though a torch had been applied to some train long prepared, the whole of england burst forth into a perfect frenzy of terror. a people are never so terrible, never so barbarous, as when they are thoroughly and needlessly terrified. from every quarter of the kingdom the cry was at once for blood; and elizabeth, looking in cool delight upon the tumult, perceived373 that the moment had arrived when she might gratify, without fear, her jealous thirst for her hated guest’s destruction. addresses showered into either house of parliament, beseeching the queen and her ministers to awaken themselves at once to the perils of the people; to provide against the impended dangers of a catholic succession; and to remove at once all possibility of future conspiracies by the immediate removal of her who was, as they asserted, not the cause only, but the principal mover of every successive plot.
it is not to be supposed that, after pining so long in secret for an opportunity of gratifying her malice, elizabeth doubted an instant. it is true indeed that, with a loathsome affectation of tender-heartedness, she pretended to regret the stern necessity; that she whined forth doleful remonstrances to her trusty ministers, entreating them to discover some mode by which she might herself be preserved from the risk of assassination, without undergoing the misery of seeing her well-beloved cousin of scotland suffer in her stead! well, however, did those ministers know the meaning of the motives of their odious mistress; well were they aware that there was no more of pity or reluctance in the bosom of elizabeth than there is of mirth in that of the hyena when he sends forth his yells of laughter above his mangled prey!
it was a lovely morning in the autumn; the sun was shedding a mellow light upon the long glades and velvet turf of a park-like lawn before the feudal towers of the earl of shrewsbury. before the gate were assembled a group of liveried domestics, with many a noble steed pawing the earth and champing its foamy bits; hounds clamored in their couples, and falcons shook themselves and clapped their restless wings in vain impatience. it was evident that the attendants were but awaiting the approach of some distinguished personage, to commence their sports; and by their whispered conversation it appeared374 that this personage was no other than the wretched mary. the castle-gates were thrown open; a heavy guard, with arquebuss, and pike, and bow, filed through the gloomy gateway; and then, leaning upon the arm of the still stately shrewsbury, the poor victim of inveterate persecution came slowly forward. several gentlemen in rich attire, and among them sir thomas georges, blazing in the royal liveries of england, yet bearing on his soiled buskins and the bloody spurs that graced them tokens of a long and hasty journey, followed; and another band of warders brought up the rear.
the charms which had once rendered mary the loveliest of her sex, had faded, it is true; the dimpled cheek was sunken, and its hues, that once had vied with the carnation, had fled for ever; her tresses were no longer of that rich and golden brown that had furnished subjects for a thousand sonnets, for many a line of gray marked the premature and wintry blight which had been cast upon her beauties by the sternness and misery of her latter years. still, there was an air of such sweet resignation in every feature, such a dignity in the port of her person—still symmetrical, though it had lost something of its roundness—such a majesty in her still-brilliant eyes—that even the wretches who had determined on her destruction dared not meet the glance of her whom they so foully wronged.
she was already seated in the saddle, and the reins just grasped in a delicate but masterly hand, when georges, stepping forward and bending a knee—almost, as it would seem, in mockery—informed her that her confederates in the meditated slaughter of elizabeth were convicted; that it was the pleasure of the queen that her grace of scotland should proceed at once to the sure castle of fotheringay, and that it was resolved that she should set forth upon the instant. for a moment, but for a single moment, did mary gaze into the eyes of the courtly speaker, with a gaze of incredulity, almost of terror;375 a quick shudder ran through every limb; and once she wrung her hands bitterly—but not a word escaped her pallid lips, not a tear disgraced her noble race.
“it is well, sir,” she said, “it is well. we thank you, no less for your pleasant tidings, than the knightly considerations which prompted you to choose so well your opportunity for conveying them to our ear when we were about to set forth in search of such brief pleasure as might for a moment gild the monotony of a prisoner’s life! we thank you, sir, most warmly, and we doubt not your own noble heart will reward you by that best of gifts, a happy and approving conscience! for the rest—lead on! it matters little to the wretched and the captive by what title the prison-bars, which shut them out from light, and liberty, and hope, are dignified; and well do we know that for us there is but one exit from our dungeon, or rest from our calamities—the grave!”
she had commenced her speech in that tone of calm and polished raillery for which she had in her earlier days been so renowned, and which even pierced deeper into the feelings of those who writhed beneath it than the most bitter sarcasm; but her concluding sentences were uttered with deep feeling: and, as she turned her liquid eyes toward heaven, it seemed most wonderful that men should exist capable of exciting a single pang in the heart of such a creature.
the gates of fotheringay received her; and, as she rode beneath the gloomy archway, a prophetic chill fell upon her soul, and she felt that here her wanderings and her sorrows would shortly be brought to a close! scarcely had she reached the miserable privacy of her chamber, when steps were heard without. mildmay, paulet, and barker, entered, and delivering a letter full of hypocritical regrets and feigned affection, informed her that the queen’s commissioners were even then assembled in the castle-hall, and prayed the lady mary to descend and376 refute the foul charges preferred against her name.
enfeebled as she had been by sufferings and sorrows, wearied by her long and rapid journey, and, above all things, crushed by this last blow, it little seemed that so frail and delicate a form could have contained a soul so mighty as flashed forth in one blaze of indignation. her pale cheek crimsoned, her sunken eye glared with unwonted fire; she started upon her feet, her limbs trembling, not with terror or debility, but with strong and terrible excitement.
“knows not your mistress,” she cried, in clear, high tones, “that i, too, am a queen? or would she knowingly debase the dignity which is common to her with me? away! i will not deign to plead! i—i, the queen of scotland, the mother and the wife of kings—i plead to mine inferiors? go tell your mistress that neither eighteen years of vile captivity, nor dread, nor misery, has sunk the soul of mary stuart so low, that she will speak one syllable to guard her life, save in the presence of her peers! let her assemble her high courts of parliament, if she so will it: to them, and to them only, will i plead. here she may slay me, it is true; but she must slay me by the assassin’s knife, not by the prostituted sword of justice. i have spoken!”—and she threw herself at once into a seat, immoveable alike in position and in resolve.
well had it been for her had she continued firm in that determination; but what could a weak woman’s unassisted intellect avail against the united force of talents such as those of hatton and burleigh? a thousand specious arguments were summoned to overcome her scruples, but summoned all in vain, till the last hint—that her unwillingness to plead could arise only from a consciousness of guilt—aroused her. pride, fatal pride, determined the debate, and she descended. eloquently, sorrowfully, manfully, did she plead her cause, combating the vile chicaneries, the extorted evidences, the absence or the377 want of legal witnesses, with the native powers of a clear and vigorous mind. once during that judicial mockery did her passions burst the control of her judgment, and she openly, in full court, charged the secretary, walsingham—and, as many now believe, most justly charged him—with the forgery of the only documents that bore upon her character, or on the case in point. but all was fruitless! for what eloquence should convince men resolved in any circumstances to convict? what facts should clear away the imputed guilt of one whom it was fully determined to destroy?
the trial was concluded. with the air of a queen she stood erect, with a calm brow and serene eye, as the commissioners departed, one by one. no doom had been pronounced against her, but she read it in the eyes of all; and as she saw her misnamed judges quit her presence, she muttered, in the low notes of a determined spirit: “the tragedy is well nigh closed—the last act is at hand! peace—peace—i soon shall find thee in the grave.”
