II. BOOK whatever might be their talking language, were secretly satisfied with the result, when each reflected on the consequences which might have followed from an uncompromised investigation. Each of the accusing and defending persons knew what individual share of the criminating transaction they had respectively performed; and as the probability is against all, that every one had more or less participated in the foreknowlege, plan, or preparation of the king's deposition, if not of his destruction; tho Bothwell and his accomplices only were the operating agents in the particular deed that was perpetrated; it was the best event for every one, that no more of the atrocious action was distinctly and judicially exposed to the public eye, than their mutual arraignments. Each denied the reciprocated charges, and all have thus descended to posterity with the attachment of the imputation upon their memory, but with the 'Of Cecil he learnt that she said, the secretary was her enemy; but when her passion was passed, said, that tho he was not her friend, yet she must say that he was an expert wise man; a maintainer of all good laws for the government of this realm, and a faithful servant to his mistress; wishing it might be her luck to get the friendship of so wise a man.' Mr. White then adds his own opinion of her: If I might advise, there should be very few subjects of this land have access to this lady. For besides that she is a goodly personage, she hath an alluring grace, a pretty Scottish speech, and a searching wit, clouded with mildness. Fame might move some to relieve her, and glory joined to gain might stir others to adventure much for her sake. Her hair of itself is black, and yet Mr. Knollys told me that she wears hair of sundry colors. In looking upon her cloth of estate I noted this sentence: En ma fin, est mon commencement,' which is a riddle I understand not. She hath fifty persons in household, with ten horses. The bishop of Ross lay then three miles off in Burton-upon-Trent, with another Scottish lord. 'My lord of Shrewsbury is very careful of his charge, but the queen over-watches them all, for it is one of the clock at least every night ere she go to bed. The next morning I was up timely and viewing the seat of the house, which stands much like Windsor. Iespied two halberd men without the castle wall, searching underneath the queen's bedchamber window.' Lett. 26 Feb. 1569. Haines' State Papers, 509-12. 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, BOOK 11. 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 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 mention, 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 |