XXIV. advantage of its being unsubstantiated by legal proof; CHAP every one may therefore be vindicated by their friends as perseveringly and as plausibly, as emulous and active ingenuity can gratify itself by attempting. The conduct of no sovereign and of no minister has been more fully laid open to us than that of Elizabeth and lord Burghley as to Scotland and its queen, up to the termination of this investigation; and we see by the private and official papers and letters, that it was uniformly governed on these reasonable and patriotic principles; that there should be no French army in Scotland; that its religious reformation should be supported; that its sovereign should be in amity with England; that its national independence should continue undiminished, but that it should not be made an instrument for invading England, or for subverting its throne, or for endangering its Protestant establishment. The policy of the state secretary and of Elizabeth, were uniformly directed to these wise and equitable objects. With Mary, the English queen desired to be on a friendly footing, provided she discontinued her pretensions to her crown, and held no alarming intercourse with that portion of her subjects who desired a queen of the Romish faith, or with nobles who wished a sovereign whose facility or weakness they could govern to their own purposes. But when the Scottish queen had deviated from her nuptial honor; had sanctioned conspiracies to depress her husband; and if not actually engaged in concerting his destruction, yet had indulged passions and formed intimacies which led to it; and after its perpetration had taken no steps to punish the assassins, but wilfully married, 11. BOOK about two months afterwards, the principal murderer, and continued to adhere to him, to the sacrifice of her crown: when Mary had become this altered being, thus sadly changed in reputation, habits and moral feelings, and then suddenly came into the dominions of Elizabeth, claiming to be received and honored as a distinguished sovereign; it became imperious on the English cabinet and its illustrious head, to fulfil the antient Roman mandate to its appointed dictator, Take care that the common weal receive no injury.' A person who would do in Scotland what Mary, in the most forbearing view of her actions, had manifestly done there, must be supposed to be capable of yielding herself in England to such things and people as would most please her inclinations and promote her interests, without the usual restraints of a love for unblemished honor, a desire to preserve an unsuspected reputation, and a resolution to maintain the great principles of social probity. Neither of these qualities, which are our usual pledges to each other for our rectitude of conduct, and the foundations of our mutual confidence, had Mary proved herself to possess. Coming therefore into a country whose throne she had claimed against its present possessor; and with materials of combustion in every part, which foreign agents were striving to inflame, and for whose explosion a regal name and pretensions like Mary's were peculiarly adapted, and to which such a character as she bore would make her a more favorable assistant; it was impossible that she could be received or treated otherwise than she was, consistently with the public security and with the common judgment of its XXIV. administrative guardians. We see by the despatches, CHAP. that Elizabeth's immediate orders were to treat her with every respect, but that she would not compromise her own safety and personal honor, by receiving her with cordial gratulation and public state in her royal court. As a queen, she felt desirous to protect her against opposing nobles, unless her conduct had been such, that the public feeling would not allow the national force to be used in coercing the Scottish people to re-establish her, against the regency which they had appointed on behalf of her son. The investigation was intercepted in its progress, after it had become manifest that she could not be acquitted nor justly re-established: and the continuation of her superintended residence in England became, though an undesirable, yet an unavoidable, measure. A severe imprisonment, or worse consequences, would have attended her return to her country; and to have released her in order to go to France, was to incur the certainty of her returning to her island at the head of a French army, which could not fail to involve all the three countries in a dangerous and vindictive war. It was therefore the most salutary measure for all concerned, that Mary should remain as she was: and the candid moralist and soundest reasoner will not desire to contend that she deserved to be placed in a more favorable position. The ulterior results proved the wisdom of the decision; Scotland has never since been, as she was always before, the instrument, often reluctant, but too frequently impelled, and the victim of French politics. No national hostilities between her and ourselves, afflicted either as before. Mary's child securely enjoyed his Scottish II. BOOK throne, and peacefully succeeded to Elizabeth's, as she had always wished. The Reformation has stood unshaken in both parts of the island; and a happy union has blended the population of each, into one general country of fraternal emulation, respect, kindness, progression, and prosperity. Scotsmen and Englishmen are now real brothers, and assisting friends in art, in arms, in science, in commerce, and in every thing which exalts the human intellect, which adorns our common nature, and which distinguishes its political society. Our national historiography, in each part of our island, no longer rests on individual kings or queens of doubtful character, or of imaginative merit. The translation of James from Holyrood House to Whitehall, began a new history for both countries, of a grander character than either had known before and we are now partners in all the honor, fame, and power, which wise government, public spirit, high moral character, and peaceful and consistent conduct, can obtain or impart to either.50 50 One of the most important letters on the subject of Mary's guilt or innocence, appears to me to be that of the king's father, in July 1570, which Dr. Robertson published. Mary had written from Chatsworth to his wife a letter on 10th July 1570, to know her opinion on the propriety of having James, the kingly infant, brought into England, in which she takes occasion to inention, 'You have not only as it were condemned me wrongfully, but so hated me, &c. hoping with time, to have my innocency known to you,' and prays heaven to cause you to know my part better than ye do.' The countess sent this letter to her husband, who returned to his wife this answer: Seeing you have remitted to me to answer the queen, the king's mother's letter sent to you, what can I say, but that I do not marvel to see her write the best she can for herself, to seem to purge her of that whereof many, besides me, are certainly persuaded of the contrary; and I, not only assured by my own knowledge, but by HER HAND-WRITING, the confessions of men gone to the death, and other XXIV. infallible experience. It will be a long time that is able to put a СНАР. matter so notorious in oblivion; to make black, white; or innocency to appear where the contrary is so well known. The most indifferent, I trust, doubt not of the equity of your and my cause, and of the just occasion of our misliking. Her right duty to you and me, being the parties interested, were [would be] her true confession and unfeigned repentance of that lamentable fact, odious for her to be reported, and sorrowful for us to think of. God is just, and will not in the end be abused; but as he has manifested the truth, so will he punish the iniquity.' Dr. Robertson's remark on this is rational: 'In a private letter to his own wife, Lennox had no occasion to dissemble; and it is plain that he not only thought the queen guilty, but believed the authenticity of her letters to Bothwell.' Dissert. This letter of Lennox, so decidedly expressing his own conviction, makes a great impression on my own mind. No one was so capable of judging whether the letters were genuine, because he was at Glasgow with his son at the time they were written; and as they contain several little private circumstances, was peculiarly qualified to know if these were true. This was a test which no after forgery could have stood. In the longest letter, she mentioned Lennox five times with peculiar circumstances. His father keeps his chamber. I have not seen him.' Guess what pre sage that is. I have not yet seen him. He keeps his chamber.' The lord of Luse came and met me. He said he was charged to one day of law by the king's father, which should be this day, against his own handwriting, which he has.' Four miles ere I came to the town, one gentleman of the earl of Lennox came and made his commendations unto me, and excused him that he came not to meet me, by reason that he durst not enterprise the same, because of the rude words that I had spoken to Cunningham.' The message of the father in the gate.' Now, these five notices of Lennox were all on such marking facts relating to himself, as gave him the opportunity of correctly judging whether the letters were her compositions. He knew best whether these allusions to himself were true, and if they were, no distant forger was likely to have known them. Did his messenger meet her precisely at the gate? Did he send him with that apology, and with that remark as to Cunningham, which is nowhere else mentioned? Did he charge the lord of Luse to attend on that particular day, and contrary to his own previous handwriting? Did his mouth and nose bleed on the day she wrote that letter? Did he then keep his chamber, and thereby not see her at that time? These questions would put the genuineness of the letters to the severest trial; and his own letter to his wife, so fully asserting his conviction of Mary's guilt from her own handwriting, is evidence that her letters were not incorrect in these facts; and therefore I feel that his complete impression of her criminality is of the highest degree of evidence of it to us. He knew best what passed between her and his son on those critical days; and therefore, whether the other facts she mentions in the letters, of her conversations with him, and behaviour to him, were true or not. His belief of her guilt, and from her hand |