DEATH OF THE EARL OF LEICESTER-HENRY IV. ACCEDES IN FRANCE-AGITATION OF IRELAND-EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE SPANISH PORTS AND NAVY-DEATH OF PHILIP II.- MODERN HISTORY OF ENGLAND. BOOK II. CHAP. XX. HISTORY OF MARY OF SCOTLAND, FROM HER ARRIVAL XX. ON the morning of the 19th August 1561, the two CHAP. galleys, with the queen and her three maternal uncles, and D'Anville, the son of the connetable, arrived thro a thick and damp mist at the port of Leith. Their cannon announced her approach, and the joyous people crowded to hail their welcomed sovereign. In the evening she reached Holyrood House and as much delight and rejoicing as the national manners could be expected to exhibit in their usual peculiarity, evinced that her subjects were pleased that their native queen had returned to the throne of her ancestors and her countrymen.2 16 'Happy was he or she that first must have the presence of the queen. The Protestants were not the slowest.' Kuox Hist. p. 306. This author dates her arrival on 19th July; but Brantome, Leslie, Spottiswood, and Calderwood, on 20th; and Buchanan on 21st. So much can men vary on the circumstances of events. Castelnau says she arrived on the eighth day of her voyage, and Leslie on the sixth; another singular variation. Keith, 181. 2 Fires of joy were set forth that night; and a company of most honest men, with instruments of music and musicians, gave their salu II. 4 BOOK But a rude attempt was made to interfere with the private exercise of her religion, by those who, claiming liberty of it for themselves, ought to have allowed it to her. The good sense of lord James secured her from the impending insult, and the oppressing passions of the violent were assuaged by wise and just advise. Mary claimed the natural right of every intelligent being; but she spoke among a people who were fully as intolerant as the church which tations at her chamber window. The melody, as she alleged, liked her well, and she willed the same to be continued some nights after with great diligence. The lords repaired to her with great diligence; and so nothing was understood but mirth and quietness.' Knox, 306. John Knox wrote as he felt; but what Mary's real impressions at this time were, we learn from Brantome, who was with her: When she Janded, she had to go on horseback, and her ladies and lords on the miserable hackneys of the country, harnessed like themselves. At such an equipage she began to weep, and to say that these were not the pomps, the parade, the magnificence, nor the superb housings of France, which she had so long enjoyed; but she must have patience.' And what was worse, in the evening, at the abbey of Edinburgh, when she wished to lay down, there came 5 or 600 raggamuffins of the city, saluting her with some wretched fiddles and little rebecks, which abound in this country, and began singing psalms, as badly and discordantly as could be. Heh! what music! and what a repose for her night!' Brantome Disc. sur la Reine d'Ecosse. 3 When preparations began to be made for the idol of the mass to be said in the chapel, the lord Lyndsay, with the gentlemen of Fyfe and others, plainly cried in the yard, "The idolatrous priests should die the death.' One that carried in the candle was evil afraid; there durst no papist whisper.' Knox, 306. But the lord James took upon him to keep the chapel door. His best excuse was, that he would stop all Scottish men to enter into the mass. But it was sufficiently known that the door was kept that none should have entry to trouble the priest.' Knox, ib. 56 5 The council assembled; and politic heads were sent unto the gentlemen, with these persuasions: Why will you chase our sovereign from us? She will incontinently return to her galleys; and what then shall all the realm say of us? May we not suffer her a little while? I doubt not but she will leave it. Her uncles will depart; and then we shall rule all at our own pleasure.' With these and the like persuasions was the fervency of the brethren quenched.' Knox, p.307. 6 Knox says, her fair words were even still crying, 'Conscience, conscience! It is a sore thing to constrain the conscience.' p. 309. A sacred and immortal truth, which would be a great promoter of human happiness, if every one that uttered it would but sincerely feel it, and act correspondently with the impression. |