Discourse III Marie Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Formerly Queen of Our France
Those who wish to write of this illustrious Queen of Scotland have two very ample subjects: one her life, the other her death; both very ill accompanied by good fortune, as I shall show at certain points in this short Discourse in form of epitome, and not a long history, which I leave to be written by persons more learned and better given to writing than I.
This queen had a father, King James, of worth and valour, and a very good Frenchman; in which he was right. After he was widowed of Madame Magdelaine, daughter of France, he asked King François for some honourable and virtuous princess of his kingdom with whom to re-marry, desiring nothing so much as to continue his alliance with France.
King François, not knowing whom to choose better to content the good prince, gave him the daughter of M. de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, then the widow of M. de Longueville, wise, virtuous, and honourable, of which King James was very glad and esteemed himself fortunate to take her; and after he had taken and espoused her he found himself the same; the kingdom of Scotland also, which she governed very wisely after she was widowed; which event happened in a few years after her marriage, but not before she had produced a fine issue, namely this most beautiful princess in the world, our queen, of whom I now speak, she being, as one might say, scarcely born and still at the breast, when the English invaded Scotland. Her mother was then forced to hide her from place to place in Scotland from fear of that fury; and, without the good succour King Henri sent her she would scarce have been saved; and even so they had to put her on vessels and expose her to the waves, the storms and winds of the sea and convey her to France for greater security; where certainly ill fortune, not being able to cross the seas with her or not daring to attack her in France, left her so alone that good fortune took her by the hand. And, as her youth grew on, we saw her great beauty and her great virtues grow likewise; so that, coming to her fifteenth year, her beauty shone like the light at mid-day, effacing the sun when it shines the brightest, so beauteous was her body. As for her soul, that was equal; she had made herself learned in Latin, so that, being between thirteen and fourteen years of age, she declaimed before King Henri, the queen, and all the Court, publicly in the hall of the Louvre, an harangue in Latin, which she had made herself, maintaining and defending, against common opinion, that it was well becoming to women to know letters and the liberal arts. Think what a rare thing and admirable it was, to see this wise and beautiful young queen thus orate in Latin, which she knew and understood right well, for I was there and saw her. Also she made Antoine Fochain, of Chauny in Vermandois, prepare for her a rhetoric in French, which still exists, that she might the better understand it, and make herself as eloquent in French as she had been in Latin, and better than if she had been born in France. It was good to see her speak to every one, whether to great or small.
As long as she lived in France she always reserved two hours daily to study and read; so that there was no human knowledge she could not talk upon. Above all, she loved poesy and poets, but especially M. de Ronsard, M. du Bellay, and M. de Maison-Fleur7, who all made beautiful poems and elegies upon her, and also upon her departure from France, which I have often seen her reading to herself, in France and in Scotland, with tears in her eyes and sighs from her heart.
She was a poet herself and composed verses, of which I have seen some that were fine and well done and in no wise resembling those they have laid to her account on her love for the Earl of Bothwell, which are too coarse and too ill-polished to have come from her beautiful making. M. de Ronsard was of my opinion as to this one day when we were reading and discussing them. Those she composed were far more beautiful and dainty, and quickly done, for I have often seen her retire to her cabinet and soon return to show them to such of us good folk as were there present. Moreover she wrote well in prose, especially letters, of which I have seen many that were very fine and eloquent and lofty. At all times when she talked with others she used a most gentle, dainty, and agreeable style of speech, with kindly majesty, mingled, however, with discreet and modest reserve, and above all with beautiful grace; so that even her native tongue, which in itself is very rustic, barbarous, ill-sounding, and uncouth, she spoke so gracefully, toning it in such a way, that she made it seem beautiful and agreeable in her, though never so in others.
See what virtue there was in such beauty and grace that they could turn coarse barbarism into sweet civility and social grace. We must not be surprised therefore that being dressed (as I have seen her) in the barbarous costume of the uncivilized people of her country, she appeared, in mortal body and coarse ungainly clothing a true goddess. Those who have seen her thus dressed will admit this truth; and those who did not see her can look at her portrait, in which she is thus attired. I have heard the queen-mother, and the king too, say that she looked more beautiful, more agreeable, more desirable in that picture than in any of the others. But how else could she look, whether in her beautiful rich jewels, in French or Spanish style, or wearing her Italian caps, or in her mourning garments?—which latter made her most beautiful to see, for the whiteness of her face contended with the whiteness of her veil as to which should carry the day; but the texture of her veil lost it; the snow of her pure face dimmed the other, so that when she appeared at Court in her mourning the following song was made upon her:—
“L’on voit, sous blanc atour
En grand deuil et tristesse,
Se pourmener mainct tour
De beauté la déese,
Tenant le trait en main
De son fils inhumain;
“Et Amour, sans fronteau,
Voletter autour d’elle,
Desguisant son bandeau
En un funebre voile,
Où sont ces mots ecrits:
Mourir ou être pris.”8
That is how this princess appeared under all fashions of clothes, whether barbarous, worldly, or austere. She had also one other perfection with which to charm the world,—a voice most sweet and excellent; for she sang well, attuning her voice to the lute, which she touched very prettily with that white hand and those beautiful fingers, perfectly made, yielding in nothing to those of Aurora. What more remains to tell of her beauty?—if not this saying about her: that the sun of her Scotland was very unlike her, for on certain days of the year it shines but five hours, while she shone ever, so that her clear rays illumined her land and her people, who of all others needed light, being far estranged from the sun of heaven. Ah! kingdom of Scotland, I think your days are shorter now than they ever were, and your nights the longer, since you have lost the princess who illumined you! But you have been ungrateful; you never recognized your duty of fidelity, as you should have done; which I shall speak of presently.
This lady and princess pleased France so much that King Henri was urged to give her in alliance to the dauphin, his beloved son, who, for his part, was madly in love with her. The marriage was therefore solemnly celebrated in the great church and the palace of Paris; where we saw this queen appear more beauteous than a goddess from the skies, whether in the morning, going to her espousals in noble majesty, or leading, after dinner, at the ball, or advancing in the evening with modest steps to offer and perform her vows to Hymen; so that the voice of all as one man resounded and proclaimed throughout the Court and the great city that happy a hundredfold was he, the prince, thus joined to such a princess; and even if Scotland were a thing of price its queen out-valued it; for had she neither crown nor sceptre, her person and her glorious beauty were worth a kingdom; therefore, being a queen, she brought to France and to her husband a double fortune.
This was what the world went saying of her; and for this reason she was called queen-dauphine and her husband the king-dauphin, they living together in great love and pleasant concord.
Next, King Henri dying, they came to be King and Queen of France, the king and queen of two great kingdoms, happy, and most happy in themselves, had death not seized the king and left her widowed in the sweet April of her finest youth, having enjoyed together of love and pleasure and felicity but four short years,—a felicity indeed of short duration, which evil fortune might well have spared; but no, malignant as she is, she wished to miserably treat this princess, who made a song herself upon her sorrows in this wise:—
En mon triste et doux chant,
D’un ton fort lamentable,
Je jette un deuil tranchant,
De perte incomparable,
Et en soupirs cuisans,
Passe mes meilleurs ans.
Fut-il un tel malheur
De dure destinée,
N’y si triste douleur
De dame fortunée,
Qui mon cœur et mon œil
Vois en bierre et cercueil,
Qui en mon doux printemps
Et fleur de ma jeunesse
Toutes les peines sens
D’une extresme tristesse,
Et en rien n’ay plaisir
Qu’en regret et desir?
Ce qui m’estoit plaisant
Ores m’est peine dure;
Le jour le plus luisant
M’est nuit noire et obscure.
Et n’est rien si exquis
Qui de moy soit requis.
J’ay an cœur et à l’œil
Un portrait et image
Qui figure mon deuil
Et mon pasle visage,
De violettes teint,
Qui est l’amoureux teint.
Pour mon mal estranger
Je ne m’arreste en place;
Mais j’en ay beau changer,
Si ma douleur n’efface;
Car mon pis et mon mieux
Sont les plus deserts lieux.
Si en quelque séjour,
Soit en bois ou en prée.
Soit sur l’aube du jour,
On soit sur la vesprée,
Sans cesse mon cœur sent
Le regret d’un absent.
Si parfois vers les cieux
Viens à dresser ma veue,
Le doux traict de ses yeux
Je vois en une nue;
Ou bien je le vois en l’eau,
Comme dans un tombeau.
Si je suis en repos
Sommeillant sur ma couche,
J’oy qu’il me tient propos,
Je le sens qui me touche:
En labeur, en recoy
Tousjours est près de moy.
Je ne vois autre object,
Pour beau qu’il présente
A qui que soit subject,
Oncques mon cœur consente,
Exempt de perfection
A cette affection.
Mets, chanson, icy fin
A si triste complainte,
Dont sera le refrein:
Amour vraye et non feinte
Pour la separation
N’aura diminution.9
Such are the regrets which this sad queen went piteously singing, and manifesting even more by her pale face; for, from the time she became a widow, I never saw her colour return during the time I had the honour to see her in France and in Scotland; whither at the end of eighteen months she was forced to go, to her great regret, to pacify her kingdom, much divided on account of religion. Alas! she had neither wish nor will to go. I have often heard her say she dreaded that journey like death; and preferred a hundredfold to stay in France a simple dowager, and would content herself with Touraine and Poitou for her dowry, rather than go to reign in her savage country; but messieurs her uncles, at least some of them, but not all, advised her, indeed they urged her (I will not tell the occasions), for which they have since repented sorely.
As to this, there is no doubt that if, at her departure King Charles, her husband’s brother, had been of age to marry, and not so small and young (though much in love with her, as I have seen), he would never have let her go, but resolutely would have wedded her; for I have seen him so in love that never did he look upon her portrait that his eyes were not fixed and ravished, as though he could not take them from it nor yet be satisfied. And often have I heard him call her the most beauteous princess ever born into the world, and say how he thought the king, his brother, too happy to have enjoyed the love of such a princess, and that he ought in no wise to regret his death in the tomb since he had possessed in this world such beauty and pleasure for the little time he stayed here; and also that such happiness was worth a kingdom. So that had she remained in France he would surely have wedded her; he was resolved upon it, although she was his sister-in-law, but the pope would never have refused the dispensation, seeing that he had already in like case granted one to his own subject, M. de Lové, and also to the Marquis d’Aguilar in Spain, and many others in that country, where they make no difficulty in maintaining their estates and do not waste and dissipate them, as we do in France.
Much discourse on this subject have I heard from him, and from many, which I shall omit, not to wander from the topic of our queen, who was at last persuaded, as I have said, to return to her kingdom of Scotland; but her voyage being postponed till the spring she did so much to delay it from month to month that she did not depart until the end of the month of August. I must mention that this spring, in which she thought to leave, came so tardily, and was so cold and grievous, that in the month of April it gave no sign of donning its beautiful green robe or its lovely flowers. On which the gallants of the Court augured and proclaimed that the spring had changed its pleasant season for a hard and grievous winter, and would not wear its beauteous colours or its verdure because it mourned the departure of this sweet queen, who was its lustre. M. de Maison-Fleur, a charming knight for letters and for arms, made on that theme a most fine elegy.
The beginning of the autumn having come, the queen, after thus delaying, was forced to abandon France; and having travelled by land to Calais, accompanied by all her uncles, M. de Nemours, most of the great and honourable of the Court, together with the ladies, like Mme. de Guise and others, all regretting and weeping hot tears for the loss of such a queen, she found in port two galleys: one that of M. de Mevillon, the other that of Captain Albise, with two convoying vessels for sole armament. After six days’ rest at Calais, having said her piteous farewells all full of sighs to the great company about her, from the greatest to the least, she embarked, having her uncles with her, Messieurs d’Aumale, the grand prior, and d’Elbœuf, and M. d’Amville (now M. le Connétable), together with many of us, all nobles, on board the galley of M. de Mevillon, as being the best and handsomest.
As the vessel began to leave the port, the anchor being up, we saw, in the open sea, a vessel sink before us and perish, and many of the sailors drown for not having taken the channel rightly; on seeing which the queen cried out incontinently: “Ah, my God! what an omen is this for my journey!” The galley being now out of port and a fresh wind rising, we began to make sail, and the convicts rested on their oars. The queen, without thinking of other action, leaned her two arms on the poop of the galley, beside the rudder, and burst into tears, casting her beauteous eyes to the port and land she had left, saying ever these sad words: “Adieu, France! adieu, France!”—repeating them again and again; and this sad exercise she did for nearly five hours, until the night began to fall, when they asked her if she would not come away from there and take some supper. On that, her tears redoubling, she said these words: “This is indeed the hour, my dear France, when I must lose you from sight, because the gloomy night, envious of my content in seeing you as long as I am able, hangs a black veil before mine eyes to rob me of that joy. Adieu, then, my dear France; I shall see you nevermore!”
Then she retired, saying she had done the contrary of Dido, who looked to the sea when Æneas left her, while she had looked to land. She wished to lie down without eating more than a salad, and as she would not descend into the cabin of the poop, they brought her bed and set it up on the deck of the poop, where she rested a little, but did not cease her sighs and tears. She commanded the steersman to wake her as soon as it was day if he saw or could even just perceive the coasts of France, and not to fear to call her. In this, fortune favoured her; for the wind having ceased and the vessel having again had recourse to oars, but little way was made during the night, so that when day appeared the shores of France could still be seen; and the steersman not having failed to obey her, she rose in her bed and gazed at France again, and as long as she could see it. But the galley now receding, her contentment receded too, and again she said those words: “Adieu, my France; I think that I shall never see you more.”
Did she desire, this once, that an English armament (with which we were threatened) should appear and constrain her to give up her voyage and return to the port she had left? But if so, God in that would not favour her wishes, for, without further hindrance of any kind we reached Petit-Lict [Leith]. Of the voyage I must tell a little incident: the first evening after we embarked, the Seigneur Chastellard (the same who was afterwards executed for presumption, not for crime, as I shall tell), being a charming cavalier, a man of good sword and good letters, said this pretty thing when he saw them lighting the binnacle lamp: “There is no need of that lamp or this torch to light us by sea, for the eyes of our queen are dazzling enough to flash their fine fires along the waves and illume them, if need be.”
I must note that the day before we arrived at Scotland, being a Sunday, so great a fog arose that we could not see from the poop to the mast of the galley; at which the pilot and the overseers of the galley-slaves were much confounded,—so much so, that out of necessity we had to cast anchor in open sea, and take soundings to know where we were. The fog lasted all one day and all the night until eight o’clock on the following morning, when we found ourselves surrounded by innumerable reefs; so that had we gone forward, or even to one side, the ship would have struck and we should have perished. On which the queen said that, for her part, she should not have cared, wishing for nothing so much as death; but that not for her whole kingdom of Scotland would she have wished it or willed it for others. Having now sighted and seen (for the fog had risen) the coast of Scotland, there were some among us who augured and predicted upon the said fog, that it boded we were now to land in a quarrelsome, mischief-making, unpleasant kingdom [royaume brouille, brouillon, et mal plaisant].
We entered and cast anchor at Petit-Lict, where the principal persons of that place and Islebourg [Edinburgh] were gathered to meet their queen; and then, having sojourned at Petit-Lict only two hours, it was necessary to continue our way to Islebourg, which was barely a league farther. The queen went on horseback, and the ladies and seigneurs on nags of the country, such as they were, and saddled and bridled the same. On seeing which accoutrements the queen began to weep and say that these were not the pomps, the dignities, the magnificences, nor yet the superb horses of France, which she had enjoyed so long; but since she must change her paradise for hell, she must needs take patience. And what is worse was that when she went to bed, being lodged on the lower floor of the abbey of Islebourg [Holyrood], which is certainly a noble building and is not like the country, there came beneath her window some five or six hundred scoundrels of the town, who gave her a serenade with wretched violins and little rebecks (of which there is no lack in Scotland), to which they chanted psalms so badly sung and so out of tune that nothing could be worse. Ha! what music and what repose for her first night!
The next morning they would have killed her chaplain in front of her lodging; had he not escaped quickly into her chamber he was dead; they would have done to him as they did later to her secretary David [Riccio] whom, because he was clever, the queen liked for the management of her affairs; but they killed him in her room, so close to her that the blood spurted upon her gown and he fell dead at her feet. What an indignity! But they did many other indignities to her; therefore must we not be astonished if they spoke ill of her. On this attempt being made against her chaplain she became so sad and vexed that she said: “This is a fine beginning of obedience and welcome from my subjects! I know not what may be the end, but I foresee it will be bad.” Thus the poor princess showed herself a second Cassandra in prophecy as she was in beauty.
Being now there, she lived about three years very discreetly in her widowhood, and would have continued to do so, but the Parliament of her kingdom begged her and entreated her to marry, in order that she might leave them a fine king conceived by her, like him of the present day [James I]. There are some who say that, during the first wars, the King of Navarre desired to marry her, repudiating the queen his wife, on account of the Religion; but to this she would not consent, saying she had a soul, and would not lose it for all the grandeurs of the world,—making great scruple of espousing a married man.
At last she wedded a young English lord, of a great house, but not her equal [Henry Darnley, Earl of Lennox, her cousin]. The marriage was not happy for either the one or the other. I shall not here relate how the king her husband, having made her a very fine child, who reigns to-day, died, being killed by a fougade [small mine] exploded where he lodged. The history of that is written and printed, but not with truth as to the accusations raised against the queen of consenting to the deed. They are lies and insults; for never was that queen cruel; she was always kind and very gentle. Never in France did she any cruelty, nor would she take pleasure or have the heart to see poor criminals put to death by justice, like many grandees whom I have known; and when she was in her galley never would she allow a single convict to be beaten, were it ever so little; she begged her uncle, the grand-prior, as to this, and commanded it to the overseer herself, having great compassion for their misery, so that her heart was sick for it.
To end this topic, never did cruelty lodge in the heart of such great and tender beauty; they are liars who have said and written it; among others M. Buchanan,10 who ill returned the kindnesses the queen had done him both in France and Scotland in saving his life and relieving him from banishment. It would have been better had he employed his most excellent knowledge in speaking better of her, and not about the amours of Bothwell; even to transcribing sonnets she had made, which those who knew her poesy and her learning have always said were never written by her; nor did they judge less falsely that amour, for Bothwell was a most ugly man, with as bad a grace as could be seen.
But if this one [Buchanan] said no good, others have written a noble book upon her innocence, which I have seen, and which declared and proved it so that the poorest minds took hold of it and even her enemies paid heed; but they, wishing to ruin her, as they did in the end, were obstinate, and never ceased to persecute her until she was put into a strong castle, which they say is that of Saint-Andrew in Scotland. There, having lived nearly one year miserably captive, she was delivered by means of a most honourable and brave gentleman of that land and of good family, named M. de Beton, whom I knew and saw, and who related to me the whole story, as we were crossing the river before the Louvre, when he came to bring the news to the king. He was nephew to the Bishop of Glasco, ambassador to France, one of the most worthy men and prelates ever known, and who remained a faithful servant to his mistress to her last breath, and is so still, after her death.
So then, the queen, being at liberty, did not stay idle; in less than no time she gathered an army of those whom she thought her most faithful adherents, leading it herself,—at its head, mounted on a good horse, dressed in a simple petticoat of white taffetas, with a coif of crêpe on her head; at which I have seen many persons wonder, even the queen-mother, that so tender a princess, and so dainty as she was and had been all her life, should accustom herself at once to the hardships of war. But what would one not endure to reign absolutely and revenge one’s self upon a rebellious people, and reduce it to obedience?
Behold this queen, therefore, beautiful and generous, like a second Zenobia, at the head of her army, leading it on to face that of her enemies and to give battle. But alas! what misfortune! Just as she thought her side would engage the others, just as she was animating and exhorting them with her noble and valorous words, which might have moved the rocks, they raised their lances without fighting, and, first on one side and then upon another, threw down their arms, embraced, and were friends; and all, confederated and sworn together, plotted to seize the queen, and make her prisoner and take her to England. M. Coste, the steward of her household, a gentleman of Auvergne, related this to the queen-mother, having come from there, and met her at Saint-Maur, where he told it also to many of us.
After this she was taken to England, where she was lodged in a castle and so closely confined in captivity that she never left it for eighteen or twenty years until her death; to which she was sentenced too cruelly for the reasons, such as they were, that were given on her trial; but the principal, as I hold on good authority, was that the Queen of England never liked her, but was always and for a long time jealous of her beauty, which far surpassed her own. That is what jealousy is!—and for religion too! So it was that this princess, after her long imprisonment, was condemned to death and to have her head cut off; this judgment was pronounced upon her two months before she was executed. Some say that she knew nothing of it until they went to execute her. Others declare that it was told to her two months earlier, as the queen-mother, who was greatly distressed, was informed at Coignac, where she then was; and she was even told of this particular: no sooner was the judgment pronounced than Queen Marie’s chamber and bed were hung with black. The queen-mother thereon praised the firmness of the Queen of Scotland and said she had never seen or heard tell of any queen more steadfast in adversity. I was present when she said this, but I never thought the Queen of England would let her die,—not esteeming her so cruel as all that. Of her own nature she was not (though she was in this). I also thought that M. de Bellièvre, whom the king despatched to save her life, would have worked out something good; nevertheless, he gained nothing.
But to come to this pitiful death, which no one can describe without great compassion. On the seventeenth of February of the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, there came to the place where the queen was prisoner, a castle called Fodringhaye, the commissioners of the Queen of England, sent by her (I shall not give their names, as it would serve no end) about two or three o’clock in the afternoon; and in presence of Paulet, her guardian or jailer, read aloud their commission to the prisoner touching her execution, declaring to her that the next morning they should proceed to it, and admonishing her to be ready between seven and eight o’clock.
She, without in any way being surprised, thanked them for their good news, saying that nothing could be better for her than to come to the end of her misery; and that for long, ever since her detention in England, she had resolved and prepared herself to die; entreating, nevertheless, the commissioners to grant her a little time and leisure to make her will and put her affairs in order,—inasmuch as all depended upon their will, as their commission said. To which the Comte de Cherusbery [Earl of Shrewsbury] replied rather roughly: “No, no, madame, you must die. Hold yourself ready between seven and eight to-morrow morning. We shall not prolong the delay by a moment.” There was one, more courteous it seemed to her, who wished to use some demonstrations that might give her more firmness to endure such death. She answered him that she had no need of consolation, at least not as coming from him; but that if he wished to do a good office to her conscience he would send for her almoner to confess her; which would be an obligation that surpassed all others. As for her body, she said she did not think they would be so inhuman as to deny her the right of sepulture. To this he replied that she must not expect it; so that she was forced to write her confession, which was as follows:—
“I have to-day been combated for my religion and to make me receive the consolation of heretics. You will hear from Bourgoing and others that I have faithfully made protestation of my faith, in which I choose to die. I requested to have you here, to make my confession and to receive my sacrament; this has been cruelly refused to me, also the removal of my body, and the power to freely make my will, or to write aught, except through their hands. In default of that, I confess the grievousness of my sins in general, as I had expected to make to you in particulars; entreating you, in God’s name, to watch and pray with me this night for the forgiveness of my sins, and to send me absolution and pardon for all the offences which I have committed. I shall endeavour to see you in their presence, as they have granted me; and if it is permitted I shall ask pardon of you before them all. Advise me of the proper prayers to use this night and to-morrow morning, for the time is short and I have no leisure to write; I shall recommend you like the rest, and especially that your benefices may be preserved and secured to you, and I shall commend you to the king. I have no more leisure; advise me in writing of all you think good for my salvation.”
That done, and having thus provided for the salvation of her soul before all things else, she lost no time, though little remained to her (yet long enough to have shaken the firmest constancy, but in her they saw no fear of death, only much content to leave these earthly miseries), in writing to our king, to the queen-mother, whom she honoured much, to Monsieur and Madame de Guise, and other private persons, letters truly very piteous, but all aiming to let them know that to her latest hour she had not lost memory of friends; and also the contentment she received in seeing herself delivered from so many woes by which for one and twenty years she had been crushed; also she sent presents to all, of a value and price in keeping with a poor, unfortunate, and captive queen.
After this, she summoned her household, from the highest to the lowest, and opened her coffers to see how much money remained to her; this she divided to each according to the service she had had from them; and to her women she gave what remained to her of rings, arrows, headgear, and accoutrements; telling them that it was with much regret she had no more with which to reward them, but assuring them that her son would make up for her deficiency; and she begged her maître d’hôtel to say this to her said son; to whom she sent her blessing, praying him not to avenge her death, leaving all to God to order according to His holy will. Then she bade them farewell without a tear; on the contrary she consoled them, saying they must not weep to see her on the point of blessedness in exchange for all the sorrows she had had. After which she sent them from her chamber, except her women.
It now being night, she retired to her oratory, where she prayed to God two hours on her bare knees upon the ground, for her women saw them; then she returned to her room and said to them: “I think it would be best, my friends, if I ate something and went to bed, so that to-morrow I may do nothing unworthy of me, and that my heart may not fail me.” What generosity and what courage! She did as she said; and taking only some toast with wine she went to bed, where she slept little, but spent the night chiefly in prayers and orisons.
She rose about two hours before dawn and dressed herself as properly as she could, and better than usual; taking a gown of black velvet, which she had reserved from her other accoutrements, saying to her women: “My friends, I would rather have left you this attire than that of yesterday, but I think I ought to go to death a little honourably and have upon me something more than common. Here is a handkerchief, which I also reserved, to bind my eyes when I go there; I give it to you, ma mie (speaking to one of her women), for I wish to receive that last office from you.”
After this, she retired to her oratory, having bid them adieu once more and kissed them,—giving them many particulars to tell the king, the queen, and her relations; not things that tended to vengeance, but the contrary. Then she took the sacrament by means of a consecrated wafer which the good Pope Pius V. had sent her to serve in some emergency, the which she had always most sacredly preserved and guarded.
Having said her prayers, which were very long, it now being fully morning she returned to her chamber, and sat beside the fire; still talking to her women and comforting them, instead of their comforting her; she said that the joys of the world were nothing; that she ought to serve as a warning to the greatest of the earth as well as to the smallest, for she, having been queen of the kingdoms of France and Scotland, one by nature, the other by fortune, after triumphing in the midst of all honours and grandeurs, was reduced to the hands of an executioner; innocent, however, which consoled her. She told them their best pattern was that she died in the Catholic religion, holy and good, which she would never abandon to her latest breath, having been baptized therein; and that she wanted no fame after her death, except that they would publish her firmness throughout all France when they returned there, as she begged of them; and further, though she knew they would have much heart-break to see her on the scaffold performing this tragedy, yet she wished them to witness her death; knowing well that none would be so faithful in making the report of what was now to happen.
As she ended these words some one knocked roughly on the door. Her women, knowing it was the hour they were coming to fetch her, wanted to make resistance; but she said to them: “My friends, it will do no good; open the door.”
First there entered a man with a white stick in his hand, who, without addressing any one, said twice over as he advanced: “I have come—I have come.” The queen, not doubting that he announced to her the moment of execution, took a little ivory cross in her hand.
Next came the above-named commissioners; and when they had entered, the queen said to them: “Well, messieurs, you have come to fetch me. I am ready and well resolved to die; and I think the queen, my good sister, does much for me; and you likewise who are seeking me. Let us go.” They, seeing such firmness accompanied by so extreme a beauty and great gentleness, were much astonished, for never had she seemed more beautiful, having a colour in her cheeks which embellished her.
Thus Boccaccio wrote of Sophonisba in her adversity, after the taking of her husband and the town, speaking to Massinissa: “You would have said,” he relates, “that her misfortune made her more beauteous; it assisted the sweetness of her face and made it more agreeable and desirable.”
The commissioners were greatly moved to some compassion. Still, as she left the room they would not let her women follow her, fearing that by their lamentations, sighs, and outcries they would disturb the execution. But the queen said to them: “What, gentlemen! would you treat me with such rigour as not to allow my women to accompany me to death? Grant me at least this favour.” Which they did, on her pledging her word she would impose silence upon them when the time came to admit them.
The place of execution was in the hall, where they had raised a broad scaffold, about twelve feet square and two high, covered with a shabby black cloth.
She entered this hall without any change of countenance but with majesty and grace, as though she were entering a ballroom, where in other days she had so excellently shone.
As she neared the scaffold she called to her maître d’hôtel and said, “Help me to mount; it is the last service I shall receive from you;” and she repeated to him what she had already told him in her chamber he was to tell her son. Then, being on the scaffold, she asked for her almoner, begging the officers who were there to permit him to come to her, which they flatly refused,—the Earl of Kent saying to her that he pitied her greatly for thus clinging to superstitions of a past age, and that she ought to bear the cross of Christ in her heart and not in her hand. To which she made answer that it was difficult to bear so beautiful an image in the hand without the heart being touched by emotion and memory; and that the most becoming thing in a Christian person was to carry a real sign of the redemption to the death before her. Then, seeing that she could not have her almoner, she asked that her women might come as they had promised her; which was done. One of them, on entering the hall, seeing her mistress on the scaffold among her executioners, could not keep from crying out and moaning and losing her control; but the queen instantly laying her finger on her lips, she restrained herself.
Her Majesty then began to make her protestations, namely: that never had she plotted against the State, nor against the life of the queen, her good sister,—except in trying to regain her liberty, as all captives may. But she saw plainly that the cause of her death was religion, and she esteemed herself very happy to finish her life for that cause. She begged the queen, her good sister, to have pity upon her poor servants whom she held captive, because of the affection they had shown in seeking the liberty of their mistress, inasmuch as she was now to die for all.
They then brought to her a minister to exhort her [the Dean of Peterborough], but she said to him in English, “Ah! my friend, give yourself patience;” declaring that she would not hold converse with him nor hear any talk of his sect, for she had prepared herself to die without counsel, and that persons like him could not give her consolation or contentment of mind.
Notwithstanding this, seeing that he continued his prayers in his jargon, she never ceased to say her own in Latin, raising her voice above that of the minister. After which she said again that she esteemed herself very happy to shed the last drop of her blood for her religion, rather than live longer and wait till nature had completed the full course of her life; and that she hoped in Him whose cross she held in her hand, before whose feet she was prostrate, that this temporal death, borne for Him, would be for her the passage, the entrance to, and the beginning of life eternal with the angels and the blessèd, who would receive her blood and present it before God, in abolition of her sins; and them she prayed to be her intercessors for the obtaining of pardon and mercy.
Such were her prayers, being on her knees on the scaffold, which she made with a fervent heart; adding others for the pope, the kings of France, and even for the Queen of England, praying God to illuminate her with his Holy Spirit; praying also for her son and for the islands of Britain and Scotland that they might be converted.
That done, she called her women to help her to remove her black veil, her headdress, and other ornaments; and as the executioner tried to touch her she said, “Ah! my friend, do not touch me!” But she could not prevent his doing so, for after they had lowered her robe to the waist, that villain pulled her roughly by the arm and took off her doublet [pourpoint] and the body of her petticoat [corps de cotte] with its low collar, so that her neck and her beautiful bosom, more white than alabaster, were bare and uncovered.
She arranged herself as quickly as she could, saying she was not accustomed to strip before others, especially so large a company (it is said there were four or five hundred persons present), nor to employ the services of such a valet.
The executioner then knelt down and asked her pardon; on which she said that she pardoned him, and all who were the authors of her death with as much good-will as she prayed that God would show in forgiving her sins.
Then she told her woman to whom she had given the handkerchief to bring it to her.
She wore a cross of gold, in which was a piece of the true cross, with the image of Our Saviour upon it; this she wished to give to one of her ladies, but the executioner prevented her, although Her Majesty begged him, saying that the lady would pay him three times its value.
Then, all being ready, she kissed her ladies, and bade them retire with her benediction, making the sign of the cross upon them. And seeing that one of them could not restrain her sobs she imposed silence, saying she was bound by a promise that they would cause no trouble by their tears and moans; and she commanded them to withdraw quietly, and pray to God for her, and bear faithful testimony to her death in the ancient and sacred Catholic religion.
One of the women having bandaged her eyes with the handkerchief, she threw herself instantly on her knees with great courage and without the slightest demonstration or sign that she feared death.
Her firmness was such that all present, even her enemies, were moved; there were not four persons present who could keep from weeping; they thought the sight amazing, and condemned themselves in their consciences for such injustice.
And because the minister of Satan importuned her, trying to kill her soul as well as her body, and troubling her prayers, she raised her voice to surmount his, and said in Latin the psalm: In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in æternum; which she recited throughout. Having ended it, she laid her head upon the block, and, as she repeated once more the words, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, the executioner struck her a strong blow with the axe, that drove her headgear into her head, which did not fall until the third blow,—to make her martyrdom the greater and more glorious, though it is not the pain but the cause that makes the martyr.
This done, he took the head in his hand, and showing it to all present said: “God save the queen, Elizabeth! Thus perish the enemies of the gospel!” So saying, he uncoifed her in derision to show her hair, now white; which, however, she had never shrunk from showing, twisting and curling it as when her hair was beautiful, so fair and golden; for it was not age had changed it at thirty-five years old (being now but forty); it was the griefs, the woes, the sadness she had borne in her kingdom and in her prison.
This hapless tragedy ended, her poor ladies, anxious for the honour of their mistress, addressed themselves to Paulet, her jailer, begging him that the executioner should not touch the body, but that they might be allowed to disrobe it after all the spectators had withdrawn, so that no indignity might be done to it, promising to return all the clothing, and whatever else he might ask or claim; but that cursèd man sent them roughly away and ordered them to leave the hall.
Then the executioner unclothed her and handled her at his discretion, and when he had done what he wished the body was carried to a chamber adjoining that of her serving-men, and carefully locked in, for fear they should enter and endeavour to perform any good and pious office. And to their grief and distress was added this: that they could see her through a hole, half covered by a piece of green drugget torn from her billiard table. What brutal indifference! What animosity and indignity!—not even to have bought her a black cloth a little more worthy of her!
The poor body was left there long in that state until it began to corrupt so that they were forced to salt and embalm it,—but slightly, to save cost; after which they put it in a leaden coffin, where it was kept for seven months and then carried to profane ground around the temple of Petersbrouch [Peterborough Cathedral]. True it is that this church is dedicated to the name of Saint Peter, and that Queen Catherine of Spain is buried there as a Catholic; but the place is now profane, as are all the churches in England in these days.
There are some who have said and written, even the English who have made a book on this death and its causes, that the spoils of the late queen were taken from the executioner by paying him the value in money of her clothes and her royal ornaments. The cloth with which the scaffold was covered, even the boards of it were partly burned and partly washed, for fear that in times to come they might serve superstition; that is to say, for fear that any careful Catholic might some day buy and preserve them with respect, honour, and reverence (a fear which may possibly serve as a prophecy and augury), as the ancient Fathers had a practice of keeping relics and of taking care with devotion of the monuments of martyrs. In these days heretics do nothing of the kind. Quia omnia quæ martyrum erant, cremabant, as Eusebius says, et cineres in Rhodanum spargebant, ut cum corporibus interiret eorum quoque memoria. Nevertheless, the memory of this queen, in spite of all things, will live forever in glory and in triumph.
Here, then, is the tale of her death, which I hold from the report of two damoiselles there present, very honourable certainly, very faithful to their mistress, and obedient to her commands in thus bearing testimony to her firmness and to her religion. They returned to France after losing her, for they were French; one was a daughter of Mme. de Raré, whom I knew in France as one of the ladies of the late queen. I think that these two honourable damoiselles would have caused the most barbarous of men to weep at hearing so piteous a tale; which they made the more lamentable by tears, and by their tender, doleful, and noble language.
I also learned much from a book which has been published, entitled “The Martyrdom of the Queen of Scotland, Dowager of France.” Alas! that being our queen did her no service. It seems to me that being such they ought to have feared our vengeance for putting her to death; and they would have thought a hundred times before they came to it, if our king had chosen to take the initiative. But, because he hated the Messieurs de Guise, his cousins, he took no pains except as formal duty. Alas! what could that poor innocent do? This is what many asked.
Others say that he made many formal appeals. It is true that he sent to the Queen of England M. de Bellièvre, one of the greatest and wisest senators of France and the ablest, who did not fail to offer all his arguments, with the king’s prayers and threats, and do all else that he could; and among other things he declared that it did not belong to one king or sovereign to put to death another king or sovereign, over whom he had no power either from God or man.
I have never known a generous person who did not say that the Queen of England would have won immortal glory had she used mercy to the Scottish queen; and also she would be exempt from the risk of vengeance, however tardy, which awaits her for the shedding of innocent blood that cries aloud for it. It is said that the English queen was well advised of this; but not only did she pass over the advice of many of her kingdom, but also that of many great Protestant princes and lords both in France and Germany,—such as the Prince de Condé and Casimir, since dead, and the Prince of Orange and others, who had subscribed to this violent death while not expecting it, but afterwards felt their conscience burdened, inasmuch as it did not concern them and brought them no advantage, and they did it only to please the queen; but, in truth, it did them inestimable detriment.
They say, too, that Queen Elizabeth, when she sent to notify that poor Queen Marie of this melancholy sentence, assured her that it was done with great and sad regret on her part, under constraint of Parliament which urged it on her. To which Queen Marie answered: “She has much more power than that to make them obedient to her will when it pleases her; for she is the princess, or more truly the prince, who has made herself the most feared and reverenced.”
Now, I rely on the truth of all things, which time will reveal. Queen Marie will live glorious in this world and in the other; and the time will come in a few years when some good pope will canonize her in memory of the martyrdom she suffered for the honour of God and of his Law.
It is not to be doubted that if that great, valiant, and generous prince, the late M. de Guise, the last [Henri, le Balafré, assassinated at Blois], was not dead, vengeance for so noble a queen and cousin thus murdered would not still be unborn. I have said enough on so pitiful a subject, which I end thus:—
This queen, of a beauty so incomparable,
Was, with too great injustice, put to death:
To sustain that heart of faith inviolable
Can it be there are none to avenge the wrong?
One there is who has written her epitaph in Latin verses, the substance of which is as follows: “Nature had produced this queen to be seen of all the world: with great admiration was she seen for her beauty and virtues so long as she lived: but England, envious, placed her on a scaffold to be seen in derision: yet was well deceived; for the sight turned praise and admiration to her, and glory and thanksgiving to God.”
I must, before I finish, say a word here in reply to those whom I have heard speak ill of her for the death of Chastellard, whom the queen condemned to death in Scotland,—laying upon her that she had justly suffered for making others suffer. Upon that count there is no justice, and it should never have been made. Those who know the history will never blame our queen; and, for that reason, I shall here relate it for her justification.
Chastellard was a gentleman of Dauphiné, of good family and condition, for he was great-nephew on his mother’s side of that brave M. de Bayard, whom they say he resembled in figure, which in him was medium, very beautiful and slender, as they say M. de Bayard had also. He was very adroit at arms, and inclined in all ways to honourable exercises, such as firing at a mark, playing at tennis, leaping, and dancing. In short, he was a most accomplished gentleman; and as for his soul, it was also very noble; he spoke well, and wrote of the best, even in rhyme, as well as any gentleman in France, using a most sweet and lovely poesy, like a knight.
He followed M. d’Amville, so-called then, now M. le Connétable; but when we were with M. le Grand Prieur, of the house of Lorraine, who conducted the queen [to Scotland] the said Chastellard was with us, and, in this company became known to the queen for his charming actions, above all for his rhymes; among which he made some to please her in translation from Italian (which he spoke and knew well), beginning, Che giova posseder città e regni; which is a very well made sonnet, the substance of which is as follows: “What serves her to possess so many kingdoms, cities, towns, and provinces, to command so many peoples, and be respected, feared, admired of all, if still to sleep a widow, lone and cold as ice?”
He made also other rhymes, most beautiful, which I have seen written by his hand, for they never were imprinted, that I know.
The queen, therefore, who loved letters, and principally poems, for sometimes she made dainty ones herself, was pleased in seeing those of Chastellard, and even made response, and, for that reason, gave him good cheer and entertained him often. But he, in secrecy, was kindled by a flame too high, the which its object could not hinder, for who can shield herself from love? In times gone by the most chaste goddesses and dames were loved, and still are loved; indeed we love their marble statues; but for that no lady has been blamed unless she yielded to it. Therefore, kindle who will these sacred fires!
Chastellard returned with all our troop to France, much grieved and desperate in leaving so beautiful an object of his love. After one year the civil war broke out in France. He, who belonged to the Religion [Protestant], struggled within himself which side to take, whether to go to Orléans with the others, or stay with M. d’Amville, and make war against his faith. On the one hand, it seemed to him too bitter to go against his conscience; on the other, to take up arms against his master displeased him hugely; wherefore he resolved to fight for neither the one nor yet the other, but to banish himself and go to Scotland, let fight who would, and pass the time away. He opened this project to M. d’Amville and told him his resolution, begging him to write letters in his favour to the queen; which he obtained: then, taking leave of one and all, he went; I saw him go; he bade me adieu and told me in part his resolution, we being friends.
He made his voyage, which ended happily, so that, having arrived in Scotland and discoursing of his intentions to the queen, she received him kindly and assured him he was welcome. But he, abusing such good cheer and seeking to attack the sun, perished like Phaëton; for, driven by love and passion, he was presumptuous enough to hide beneath the bed of her Majesty, where he was discovered when she retired. The queen, not wishing to make a scandal, pardoned him; availing herself of that good counsel which the lady of honour gives to her mistress in the “Novels of the Queen of Navarre,” when a seigneur of her brother’s Court, slipping through a trap-door made by him in the alcove, seeking to win her, brought nothing back but shame and scratches: she wishing to punish his temerity and complain of him to her brother, the lady of honour counselled her that, since the seigneur had won nought but shame and scratches, it was for her honour as a lady of such mark not to be talked of; for the more it was contended over, the more it would go to the nose of the world and the mouth of gossips.
Our Queen of Scotland, being wise and prudent, passed this scandal by; but the said Chastellard, not content and more than ever mad with love, returned for the second time, forgetting both his former crime and pardon. Then the queen, for her honour, and not to give occasion to her women to think evil, and also to her people if it were known, lost patience and gave him up to justice, which condemned him quickly to be beheaded, in view of the crime of such an act. The day having come, before he died he had in his hand the hymns of M. de Ronsard; and, for his eternal consolation, he read from end to end the Hymn of Death (which is well done, and proper not to make death abhorrent), taking no help of other spiritual book, nor of minister or confessor.
Having ended that reading wholly, he turned to the spot where he thought the queen must be, and cried in a loud voice: “Adieu, most beautiful, most cruel princess in all the world!” then, firmly stretching his neck to the executioner, he let himself be killed very easily.
Some have wished to discuss why it was that he called her cruel; whether because she had no pity on his love, or on his life. But what should she have done? If, after her first pardon she had granted him a second, she would on all sides have been slandered; to save her honour it was needful that the law should take its course. That is the end of this history.
“Well, they may say what they will, many a true heart will be sad for Mary Stuart, e’en if all be true men say of her.” That speech, which Walter Scott puts into the mouth of one of the personages in his novel of “The Abbot” at the moment when he is preparing the reader for an introduction to the beautiful queen, remains the last word of posterity as it was of contemporaries,—the conclusion of history as of poesy.
Elizabeth living triumphed, and her policy after her lives and triumphs still, so that Protestantism and the British empire are one and the same thing. Marie Stuart succumbed, in her person and in that of her descendants; Charles I. under the axe, James II. in exile, each continued and added to his heritage of faults, imprudences, and calamities; the whole race of the Stuarts was cut off, and seems to have deserved it. But, vanquished in the order of things and under the empire of fact, and even under that of inexorable reason, the beautiful queen has regained all in the world of imagination and of pity. She has found, from century to century, knights, lovers, and avengers. A few years ago, a Russian of distinction, Prince Alexander Labanoff, began, with incomparable zeal, a search through the archives, the collections, the libraries of Europe, for documents emanating directly from Marie Stuart, the most insignificant as well as the most important of her letters, in order to connect them and so make a nucleus of history, and also an authentic shrine, not doubting that interest, serious and tender interest, would rise, more powerful still, from the bosom of truth itself. On the appearance of this collection of Prince Labanoff, M. Mignet produced, from 1847 to 1850, a series of articles in the “Journal des Savants,” in which, not content with appreciating the prince’s documents, he presented from himself new documents, hitherto unpublished and affording new lights. Since then, leaving the form of criticism and dissertation, M. Mignard has taken this fine subject as a whole, and has written a complete narrative upon it, grave, compact, interesting, and definitive, which he is now publishing [1851].
In the meantime, about a year ago, there appeared a “History of Marie Stuart” by M. Dargaud, a writer of talent, whose book has been much praised and much read. M. Dargaud made, in his own way, various researches about the heroine of his choice; he went expressly to England and Scotland, and visited as a pilgrim all the places and scenes of Marie Stuart’s sojourns and captivities. While drawing abundantly from preceding writers, M. Dargaud does them justice with effusion and cordiality; he sheds through every line of his history the sentiment of exalted pity and poesy inspired within him by the memory of that royal and Catholic victim; he deserves the fine letter which Mme. Sand wrote him from Nohant, April 10, 1851, in which she congratulates him, almost without criticism, and speaks of Marie Stuart with charm and eloquence. If I do not dwell at greater length upon the work of M. Dargaud, it is, I must avow, because I am not of that too emotional school which softens and enervates history. I think that history should not necessarily be dull and wearisome, but still less do I think it should be impassioned, sentimental, and as if magnetic. Without wishing to depreciate the qualities of M. Dargaud, which are too much in the taste of the day not to be their own recommendation, I shall follow in preference a more severe historian, whose judgment and whose method of procedure inspire me with confidence.
Marie Stuart, born December 8, 1542, six days before the death of her father, who was then combating, like all the kings his predecessors, a turbulent nobility, began as an orphan her fickle and unfortunate destiny. Storms assailed her in her cradle,—
“As if, e’en then, inhuman Fortune
Would suckle me with sadness and with pain,”
as an old poet, in I know not what tragedy, has made her say. Crowned at the age of nine months, disputed already in marriage between the French and English parties, each desiring to prevail in Scotland, she was early, through the influence of her mother, Marie de Guise (sister of the illustrious Guises), bestowed upon the Dauphin of France, the son of King Henri II. August 13, 1548, Marie Stuart, then rather less than six years old, landed at Brest. Betrothed to the young dauphin, who, on his father’s death became François II., she was brought up among the children of Henri II. and Catherine de’ Medici, and remained in France, first as dauphine, then as queen, until the premature death of her husband. She lived there in every respect as a French princess. These twelve or thirteen years in France were her joy and her charm, and the source of her ruin.
She grew up in the bosom of the most polished, most learned, most gallant Court of those times, shining there in her early bloom like a rare and most admired marvel, knowing music and all the arts (divinæ Palladis artes), learning the languages of antiquity, speaking themes in Latin, superior in French rhetoric, enjoying an intercourse with poets, and being herself their rival with her poems. Scotland, during all this time, seemed to her a barbaric and savage land, which she earnestly hoped never to see again, or, at any rate, never to inhabit. Trained to a policy wholly of the Court and wholly personal, they made her sign at Fontainebleau at the time of her marriage (1558) a secret deed of gift of the kingdom of Scotland to the kings of France, at the same time that she publicly gave adherence to the conditions which the commissioners from Scotland had attached to the marriage, conditions under which she pledged herself to maintain the integrity, the laws, and the liberties of her native land. It was at this very moment that she secretly made gift to the kings of France of her whole kingdom by an act of her own good-will and power. The Court of France prompted her to that imprudent treachery at the age of sixteen. Another very impolitic imprudence, which proclaimed itself more openly, was committed when Henri II., on the death of Mary Tudor, made Marie Stuart, the dauphine, bear the arms of England beside those of Scotland, thus presenting her thenceforth as a declared rival and competitor of Elizabeth.
When Marie Stuart suddenly lost her husband (December 5, 1560), and it was decided that she, a widow at eighteen, should, instead of remaining in her dowry of Touraine, return to her kingdom of Scotland to bring order to the civil troubles there existing, universal mourning took place in the world of young French seigneurs, noble ladies, and poets. The latter consigned their regrets to many poems which picture Marie Stuart to the life in this decisive hour, the first really sorrowful hour she had ever known. We see her refined, gracious, of a delicate, fair complexion, the form and bust of queen or goddess,—L’Hôpital himself had said of her, after his fashion, in a grave epithalamium:—
“Adspectu veneranda, putes ut Numen inesse:
Tantus in ore decor, majestas regia tanta est!—
of a long hand, elegant and slender (gracilis), an alabaster forehead dazzling beneath the crape, and with golden hair—which needs a brief remark. It is a poet (Ronsard) who speaks of “the gold of her ringed and braided hair,” and poets, as we know, employ their words a little vaguely. Mme. Sand, speaking of a portrait she had seen as a child in the English Convent, says, without hesitation, “Marie was beautiful, but red-haired.” M. Dargaud speaks of another portrait, “in which a sunray lightens” he says rather oddly, “the curls of her living and electric hair.” But Walter Scott, reputed the most correct of historical romance-writers, in describing Marie Stuart a prisoner in Lochleven Castle, shows us, as though he had seen them, her thick tresses of “dark brown,” which escaped now and then from her coif. Here we are far from the red or golden tints, and I see no other way of conciliating these differences than to rest on “that hair so beautiful, so blond and fair” [si blonds et cendrés] which Brantôme, an ocular witness, admired,—hair that captivity whitened, leaving the poor queen of forty-six “quite bald” in the hands of her executioner, as l’Estoile relates. But at nineteen, the moment of her departure from France, the young widow was in all the glory of her beauty, except for a brilliancy of colour, which she lost at the death of her first husband, giving place to a purer whiteness.
Withal a lively, graceful, and sportive mind, and French raillery, an ardent soul, capable of passion, open to desire, a heart which knew not how to draw back when flame or fancy or enchantment stirred it. Such was the queen, adventurous and poetical, who tore herself from France in tears, sent by politic uncles to recover her authority amid the roughest and most savage of “Frondes.”
Scotland, since Marie Stuart left it as a child, had undergone great changes; the principal was the Reformed religion which had taken root there and extended itself vigorously. The great reformer Knox preached the new doctrine, which found in Scotland stern, energetic souls ready made to receive it. The old struggle of the lords and barons against the kings was complicated and redoubled now by that of cities and people against the brilliant beliefs of the Court and the Catholic hierarchy. The birth of modern society, of civil equality, of respect for the rights of all was painfully working itself out through barbaric scenes, and by means of fanaticism itself. Alone and without counsel, contending with the lords and the nobility as her ancestors had done, Marie Stuart, quick, impulsive, subject to predilections and to antipathies, was already insufficient for the work; what therefore could it be when she found herself face to face with a religious party, born and growing during recent years, face to face with an argumentative, gloomy party, moral and daring, discussing rationally, Bible in hand, the right of kings, and pushing logic even into prayer? Coming from a literary and artificial Court, there was nothing in her that could comprehend these grand and voiceless movements of the people, either to retard them or turn them to her own profit by adapting herself to them. “She returned,” says M. Mignet, “full of regrets and disgust, to the barren mountains and the uncultured inhabitants of Scotland. More lovable than able, very ardent and in no way cautious, she returned with a grace that was out of keeping with her surroundings, a dangerous beauty, a keen but variable intellect, a generous but rash soul, a taste for the arts, a love of adventure, and all the passions of a woman joined to the excessive liberty of a widow.”
And to complicate the peril of this precarious situation she had for neighbour in England a rival queen, Elizabeth, whom she had first offended by claiming her title, and next, and no less, by a feminine and proclaimed superiority of beauty and grace,—a rival queen capable, energetic, rigid, and dissimulating, representing the contrary religious opinion, and surrounded by able counsellors, firm, consistent, and committed to the same cause. The seven years that Marie Stuart spent in Scotland after her return from France (August 19, 1561) to her imprisonment (May 18, 1568) are filled with all the blunders and all the faults that could be committed by a young and thoughtless princess, impulsive, unreflecting, and without shrewdness or ability except in the line of her passion, never in view of a general political purpose. The policy of Mme. de Longueville, during the Fronde, seems to me of the same character.
As to other faults, the moral faults of poor Marie Stuart, they are as well known and demonstrated to-day as faults of that kind can well be. Mme. Sand, always very indulgent, regards as the three black spots upon her life the abandonment of Chastellard, her feigned caresses to the hapless Darnley, and her forgetfulness of Bothwell.
Chastellard, as we know, was a gentleman of Dauphiné, musician and poet, in the train of the servitors and adorers of the queen, who at first was very agreeable to her. Chastellard was one of the troop who escorted Marie Stuart to Scotland, and sometime later, urged by his passion, he returned there. But not knowing how to restrain himself, or to keep, as became him, to poetic passion while waiting to inspire, if he could, a real one, he was twice discovered beneath the bed of the queen; the second time she lost patience and turned him over to the law. Poor Chastellard was beheaded; he died reciting, so they say, a hymn of Ronsard’s, and crying aloud: “O cruel Lady!” After so stern an act, to which she was driven in fear of scandal and to put her honour above all attainder and suspicion, Marie Stuart had, it would seem, but one course to pursue, namely: to remain the most severe and most virtuous of princesses.
But her severity for Chastellard, though shown for effect, is merely a peccadillo in comparison with her conduct to Darnley, her second husband. By marrying this young man (July 29, 1565), her vassal, but of the race of the Stuarts and her own family, Marie escaped the diverse political combinations which were striving to attract her to a second marriage; and it would have been, perhaps, a sensible thing to do, if she had not done it as an act of caprice and passion. But she fell in love with Darnley in a single day, and became disgusted in the next. This tall, weakly youth, timid and conceited by turns, with a heart “soft as wax,” had nothing in him which subjugates a woman and makes her respect him. A woman such as Marie Stuart, changeable, ardent, easily swayed, with the sentiment of her weakness and of her impulsiveness, likes to find a master and at moments a tyrant in the man she loves, whereas she soon despises her slave and creature when he is nought but that; she much prefers an arm of iron to an effeminate hand.
Less than six months after her marriage Marie, wholly disgusted, consoled herself with an Italian, David Riccio, a man thirty-two years of age, equally well fitted for business or pleasure, who advised her and served her as secretary, and was gifted with a musical talent well suited to commend him to women in other ways. The feeble Darnley confided his jealousy to the discontented lords and gentlemen, and they, in the interests of their faction, prodded his vengeance and offered to serve it with their sword. Ministers and Presbyterian pastors took part in the affair. The whole was plotted and managed with perfect unanimity as a chastisement of Heaven, and, what is more, by help of deeds and formal agreements which simulated legality. The queen and her favourite, apparently before they had any suspicions, were taken in a net. David Riccio was seized by the conspirators while supping in Marie’s cabinet (March 9, 1566), Darnley being present, and from there he was dragged into the next room and stabbed. Marie, at this date, was six months pregnant by her husband. On that day, outraged in honour and embittered in feeling, she conceived for Darnley a deeper contempt mingled with horror, and swore to avenge herself on the murderers. For this purpose she bided her time, she dissimulated; for the first time in her life she controlled herself and restrained her actions. She became politic—as the nature is of passionate women—only in the interests of her passion and her vengeance.
Here is the gravest and the most irreparable incident of her life. Even after we have fully represented to ourselves what the average morality of the sixteenth century, with all the treachery and atrocities it tolerated, was, we are scarcely prepared for this. Marie Stuart’s first desire was to revenge herself on the lords and gentlemen who had lent their daggers to Darnley, rather than on her weak and timid husband. To reach her end she reconciled herself with the latter and detached him from the conspirators, his accomplices. She forced him to disavow them, thus degrading and sinking him in his own estimation. At this point she remained as long as a new passion was not added to her supreme contempt. Meantime her child was born (June 19), and she made Darnley the father of a son who resembled both parents on their worst sides, the future James I. of England, that soul of a casuist in a king. But by this time a new passion was budding in the open heart of Marie Stuart. He whom she now chose had neither Darnley’s feebleness nor the salon graces of a Riccio; he was the Earl of Bothwell, a man of thirty, ugly, but martial in aspect, brave, bold, violent, and capable of daring all things. To him it was that this flexible and tender will was henceforth to cling for its support. Marie Stuart has found her master; and him she will obey in all things, without scruple, without remorse, as happens always in distracted passion.
But how rid herself of a husband henceforth odious? How unite herself to the man she loves and whose ambition is not of a kind to stop half way? Here again we need—not to excuse, but to explain Marie Stuart—we need to represent to our minds the morality of that day. A goodly number of the same lords who had taken part in Riccio’s murder, and who were leagued together by deeds and documents, offered themselves to the queen, and, for the purpose of recovering favour, let her see the means of getting rid of a husband who was now so irksome. She answered this overture by merely speaking of a divorce and the difficulty of obtaining it. But these men, little scrupulous, said to her plainly, by the mouth of Lethington, the ablest and most politic of them all: “Madame, give yourself no anxiety; we, the leaders of the nobility, and the heads of your Grace’s Council, will find a way to deliver you from him without prejudice to your son; and though my Lord Murray, here present (the illegitimate brother of Marie Stuart), is little less scrupulous as a Protestant than your Grace is as a Papist, I feel sure that he will look through his fingers, see us act, and say nothing.”
The word was spoken; Marie had only to do as her brother did, “look through her fingers,” as the vulgar saying was, and let things go on without taking part in them. She did take a part however; she led into the trap, by a feigned return of tenderness, the unfortunate Darnley, then convalescing from the small-pox. She removed his suspicions without much trouble, and, recovering her empire over him, persuaded him to come in a litter from Glasgow to Kirk-of-Field, at the gates of Edinburgh, where there was a species of parsonage, little suitable for the reception of a king and queen, but very convenient for the crime now to be committed.
There Darnley perished, strangled with his page, during the night of February 9, 1567. The house was blown up by means of a barrel of gunpowder, placed there to give the idea of an accident. During this time Marie had gone to a masked ball at Holyrood, not having quitted her husband until that evening, when all was prepared to its slightest detail. Bothwell, who was present for a time at the ball, left Edinburgh after midnight and presided at the killing. These circumstances are proved in an irrefragable manner by the testimony of witnesses, by the confessions of the actors, and by the letters of Marie Stuart, the authenticity of which M. Mignard, with decisive clearness, places beyond all doubt. She felt that in giving herself thus to Bothwell’s projects she furnished him with weapons against herself and gave him grounds to distrust her in turn. He might say to himself, as the Duke of Norfolk said later, that “the pillow of such a woman was too hard” to sleep upon. During the preparation of this horrible trap she more than once showed her repugnance to deceive the poor sick dupe who trusted her. “I shall never rejoice,” she writes, “through deceiving him who trusts me. Nevertheless, command me in all things. But do not conceive an ill opinion of me; because you yourself are the cause of this; for I would never do anything against him for my own particular vengeance.” And truly this rôle of Clytemnestra, or of Gertrude in Hamlet was not in accordance with her nature, and could only have been imposed upon her. But passion rendered her for this once insensible to pity, and made her heart (she herself avows it) “as hard as diamond.” Marie Stuart soon put the climax to her ill-regulated passion and desires by marrying Bothwell; thus revolting the mind of her whole people, whose morality, fanatical as it was, was never in the least depraved, and was far more upright than that of the nobles.
The crime was echoed beyond the seas. L’Hôpital, that representative of the human conscience in a dreadful era, heard, in his country retreat, of the misguided conduct of her whose early grace and first marriage he had celebrated in his stately epithalamium; and he now recorded his indignation in another Latin poem, wherein he recounts the horrors of that funereal night, and does not shrink from calling the wife and the young mother “the murderess, alas! of a father whose child was still at her breast.”
On the 15th of May, three months—only three months after the murder, at the first smile of spring, the marriage with the murderer was celebrated. Marie Stuart justified in all ways Shakespeare’s saying: “Frailty, thy name is Woman.” For none was ever more a woman than Marie Stuart.
Here I am unable to admit the third reproach of Mme. Sand, that of Marie Stuart’s forgetfulness of Bothwell. I see, on the contrary, through all the obstacles, all the perils immediately following this marriage, that Marie had no other idea than that of avoiding separation from her violent and domineering husband. She loved him so madly that she said to whosoever might hear her (April, 1567) that “she would quit France, England, and her own country, and follow him to the ends of the earth in nought but a white petticoat, rather than be parted from him.” And soon after, forced by the lords to tear herself from Bothwell, she reproaches them bitterly, asking but one thing, “that both be put in a vessel and sent away where Fortune led them.” It was only enforced separation, final imprisonment, and the impossibility of communication, which compelled the rupture. It is true that Marie, a prisoner in England, solicited the Parliament of Scotland to annul her marriage with Bothwell, in the hope she then had of marrying the Duke of Norfolk, who played the lover to herself and crown, though she never saw him. But, Bothwell being a fugitive and ruined, can we reproach Marie Stuart for a project from which she hoped for restoration and deliverance? Her passion for Bothwell had been a delirium, which drove her into connivance with crime. That fever calmed, Marie Stuart turned her mind to the resources which presented themselves, among which was the offer of her hand. Her wrong-doing does not lie there; amid so many infidelities and horrors, it would be pushing delicacy much too far to require eternity of sentiment for the remains of an unbridled and bloody passion. That which is due to such passions, when they leave no hatred behind them, that which becomes them best, is oblivion.
Such conduct, and such deeds, crowned by her heedless flight into England and the imprudent abandonment of her person to Elizabeth, seem little calculated to make the touching and pathetic heroine we are accustomed to admire and cherish in Marie Stuart. Yet she deserves all pity; and we have but to follow her through the third and last portion of her life, through that long, unjust, and sorrowful captivity of nineteen years (May 18, 1568, to February 5, 1587) to render it unconsciously. Struggling without defence against a crafty and ambitious rival, liable to mistakes from friends outside, the victim of a grasping and tenacious policy which never let go its prey and took so long a time to torture before devouring it, she never for a single instant fails towards herself; she rises ever higher. That faculty of hope which so often had misled her becomes the grace of her condition and a virtue. She moves the whole world in the interest of her misfortunes; she stirs it with a charm all-powerful. Her cause transforms and magnifies itself. It is no longer that of a passionate and heedless woman punished for her frailties and her inconstancy; it is that of the legitimate heiress of the crown of England, exposed in her dungeon to the eyes of the world, a faithful, unshaken Catholic, who refuses to sacrifice her faith to the interests of her ambition or even to the salvation of her life. The beauty and grandeur of such a rôle were fitted to stir the tender and naturally believing heart of Marie Stuart. She fills her soul with that rôle; she substitutes it, from the first moment of her captivity, for all her former personal sentiments, which, little by little, subside and expire within her as the fugitive occasions which aroused them pass away. She seems to remember them no more than she does the waves and the foam of those brilliant lakes that she has crossed. For nineteen years the whole of Catholicity is disquieted and impassioned about her; and she is there, half-heroine, half-martyr, making the signal and waving her banner behind the bars. Captive that she was, do not accuse her of conspiring against Elizabeth; for with her ideas of right divine and of absolute kingship from sovereign to sovereign, it was not conspiring, she being a prisoner, to seek for the triumph of her cause; it was simply pursuing the war.
From the moment when Marie Stuart is a prisoner, when we see her crushed, deprived of all that comforts and consoles, infirm, alas! with whitened hair before her time, when we hear her, in the longest and most remarkable of her letters to Elizabeth (November 8, 1582), repeating for the twentieth time: “Your prison, without right, without just grounds, has already so destroyed my body that you will soon see an end if this lasts much longer; so that my enemies have no great time to satisfy their cruelty against me; nought remains to me but my soul, the which it is not in your power to render captive,”—when we dwell on this mixture of pride and plaint, pity carries us along; our hearts speak; the tender charm with which she was endowed, and which acted upon all who approached her, asserts its power and lays its spell upon us even at this distance. It is not by the text of a scribe, nor yet with the logic of a statesman that we judge her; it is with the heart of a knight, or rather, let me say, with that of a man. Humanity, pity, religion, supreme poetic grace, all those invincible and immortal powers feel themselves concerned in her person and cry to us across the ages. “Bear these tidings,” she said to her old Melvil at the moment of death: “that I die firm in my religion, a true Catholic, a true Scotchwoman, a true Frenchwoman.” These beliefs, these patriotisms and nationalities thus evoked by Marie Stuart have made that long echo that replies to her with tears and love.
What reproach can we make to one who, after nineteen years of anguish and moral torture, searched, during the night that preceded her death, in the “Lives of the Saints” (which her ladies were accustomed to read to her nightly) for some great sinner whom God had pardoned. She stopped at the story of the penitent thief, which seemed to her the most reassuring example of human confidence and divine mercy; and while Jean Kennedy, one of her ladies, read it to her, she said: “He was a great sinner, but not so great as I. I implore our Lord, in memory of His Passion, to remember and have mercy upon me, as He had upon him, in the hour of death.” Those true and sincere feelings, that contrite humility in her last and sublime moments, this perfect intelligence, and profound need of pardon, leave us without means of seeing any stain of the past upon her except through tears.
It was thus that old Étienne Pasquier felt. Having to relate in his “Recherches” the death of Marie Stuart, he compares it with the tragic history of the Connétable de Saint-Pol, and that of the Connétable de Bourbon, which left him under a mixture of conflicting sentiments. “But in that of which I now discourse,” he says, “methinks I see only tears; and is there, by chance, a man who, reading this, will not forgive his eyes?”
M. Mignet, who examines all things as an historian, and gives but short pages to emotion, has admirably distinguished and explained the different phases of Marie Stuart’s captivity, and the secret springs which were set to work at various periods. He has, especially, cast a new light, aided by Spanish documents in the Archives of Simancas, on the slow preparations of the enterprise undertaken by Philip II., that fruitless and tardy crusade, delayed until after the death of Marie Stuart, which ended in the disastrous shipwreck of the invincible Armada.
Issuing from this brilliant and stormy episode of the history of the sixteenth century, which has been so strongly and judiciously set before us by M. Mignet, full of these scenes of violence, treachery, and iniquity, and without having the innocence to believe that humanity has done forever with such deeds, we congratulate ourselves in spite of everything, and rejoice that we live in an age of softened and ameliorated public morals. We exclaim with M. de Tavannes, when he relates in his “Memoirs” the life and death of Marie Stuart: “Happy he who lives in a safe State; where good and evil are rewarded and punished according to their deserts.” Happy the times and the communities where a certain general morality and human respect for opinion, where a penal Code, and especially the continual check of publicity, exist to interdict, even to the boldest, those criminal resolutions which every human heart, if left to itself, is ever tempted to engender.
Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (1851).