adversaries, after ratifying the principal articles of the late treaty, and giving their sanction to a confession of faith presented to them by their teachers, prohibited the exercise of religious worship according to the rites of the Romish church, under the penalty of forfeiture of goods, as the punishment of the first act of disobedience; banishment, as the punishment of the second; and death, as the reward of the third1. With such indecent haste did the very persons who had just escaped the rigour of ecclesiastical tyranny proceed to imitate those examples of severity of which they had so justly complained! A law was also enacted for abolishing the papal jurisdiction in Scotland; and the Presbyterian form of worship was established, nearly as now constituted in that kingdom. Francis and Mary refused to ratify these proceedings; which, by the treaty of Edinburgh, ought to have been presented for approbation, in the form of deliberations, not of acts. But the Scottish Protestants gave themselves little trouble about their sovereigns' refusal. They immediately put the statutes in execution they abolished the mass; they settled their ministers; and they committed furious devastations on the sacred buildings, which they considered as dangerous reliques of idolatry, laying waste every thing venerable and magnificent that had escaped the storm of popular insurrection. Abbeys, cathedrals, churches, libraries, records, and even the sepulchres of the dead, perished in one common ruin'. United by the consciousness of such unpardonable stretches of authority, and well acquainted with the imperious character of the princes of Lorrain, the Protestant members of the Scottish parliament, seeing no safety for themselves but in the protection of England, dispatched ambassadors to Elizabeth, to express their sincere gratitude for her past favours, and represent to her the necessity of continuing them. That princess had equal reason to desire an union with these northern reformers. Though the disorders in France had obliged the princes of Lorrain to remit their efforts in Scotland, and had been one chief cause of the success of the English arms, they were determined not to relinquish their authority, or yield to the violence of their enemies. Nor had they yet renounced their design of subverting Elizabeth's throne. Francis and Mary, whose counsels were still wholly directed by them, obstinately refused to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, and persisted in assuming the title and arms of Keith.-Knox. 2 Robertson, book iii.-Hume, chap. xxxviii. England. Thus endangered, Elizabeth not only promised support to the Protestant party in Scotland, but secretly encouraged the French malecontents'; and it was with pleasure that she heard of the violent factions which prevailed in the court of France, and of the formidable opposition to the measures of the duke of Guise. But that opposition must soon have been crushed by the vigorous and decisive administration of the princes of Lorrain, if an unexpected event had not set bounds to their power. They had already found an opportunity of seizing the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé; they had thrown the former into prison; they had obtained a sentence of death against the latter; and they were proceeding to put it into execution, when the sudden death of Francis arrested the impending blow, and brought down the duke of Guise to the level of a subject. Dec. 5. Catharine of Medicis, the queen-mother, was appointed guardian to Charles IX. (who was only in his eleventh year at his accession), and invested with the administration of the realm, though not with the title of regent. In consequence A.D. of her maxim, “divide and govern!" the king of Navarre 1561. was named lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the sentence against Condé was annulled; Montmorency was recalled to court; and the princes of Lorrain, though they still enjoyed high offices and great power, found a counterpoise to the weight of their influence'. The death of Francis, without issue by the queen of Scots, and the change which it produced in the French counsels, at once freed the queen of England from the perils attending an union of Scotland with France, and the Scottish Protestants from the terror of the French power. The joy of the Congregation was extreme. They ascribed those events to the immediate interposition of Providence in favour of his chosen people; and Elizabeth, without looking so high for their causes, determined to take advantage of their effects, in order more firmly to establish her throne. She still regarded the queen of Scots as a dangerous rival, on account of the number of English Catholics, who were generally prejudiced in favour of Mary's title, and would now adhere to her with more zealous attachment, when they saw that her succession no longer endangered the liberties of the kingdom. She therefore gave orders to her 1 Robertson, book iii.-Hume, chap. xxxviii. ambassador at the court of France to renew his application to the queen of Scots, and to require her immediate ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh'. Mary, slighted by the queen-mother, who imputed to that princess all the mortifications which she had received during the life of Francis; forsaken by the swarm of courtiers, who appear only in the sunshine of prosperity; and overwhelmed with all the sorrow which so sad a reverse of fortune could occasion, had retired to Rheims; and there in solitude had indulged her grief, or concealed her indignation. But notwithstanding her disconsolate condition, and though she had desisted after her husband's death from bearing the arms or assuming the title of England, she still eluded the ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh, and refused to make a solemn renunciation of her pretensions to the English crown'. The states of Scotland now sent a deputation, inviting her to return into her native kingdom, and assume the reins of government. But, though very sensible that she was no longer queen of France, she was in no haste to leave a country where she had been educated from her infancy, and where so many attentions had been paid to her person as well as to her rank. Accustomed to the elegance, gallantry, and gaiety of a splendid court, and to the conversation of a polished people, by whom she had been loved and admired, she still fondly lingered in the scene of all these enjoyments, and contemplated with horror the barbarism of her own country, and the turbulence of her native subjects, who had so violently spurned all civil and religious authority. By the advice of her uncles, however, she determined at last to set out for Scotland; and as the course, in sailing from France to that kingdom, lies along the English coast, she demanded of Elizabeth, by the French ambassador D'Oisel, a safe-conduct during her voyage. That request, which decency alone might have obliged one sovereign to grant to another, Elizabeth rejected in such a manner as gave rise to no slight suspicion of a wish to obstruct the passage or intercept the person of the queen of Scots3. This ungenerous behaviour of Elizabeth filled Mary with indignation, but did not retard her departure from France. Having cleared the room of her attendants, she said to Throgmorton, the English ambassador, "How weak I may prove, or how far 1 Keith-Castelnau. 2 Camdeni Annales Rerum Anglic. Keith.--Camden.-Robertson, Append. No. VI. a woman's frailty may transport me, I cannot tell; however, I am resolved not to have so many witnesses of my infirmity as your mistress had at her audience of my ambassador D'Oisel. Nothing disturbs me so much, as having asked with so much importunity a favour which it was of no consequence for me to obtain. I can, with God's leave, return to my own country, without her leave, as I came to France in spite of all the opposition of her brother, king Edward: neither do I want friends, both able and willing, to conduct me home, as they have brought me hither; though I was desirous rather to make an experiment of your mistress's friendship, than of the assistance of any other person'." She embarked at Calais, and passing the English fleet under cover of a thick fog, arrived safely at Leith, attended by three of her uncles of the house of Lorrain, the marquis of Damville, and other French courtiers 2. Aug. 19. The circumstances of Mary's departure from France are truly affecting. The excess of her grief seems to have proceeded from a fatal presage of that scene of misfortune on which she was about to enter. Not satisfied with mingling tears with her mournful attendants, and bidding them adieu with a sorrowful heart, she kept her eyes fixed upon the French coast, after she was at sea, and did not turn them from that favourite object till darkness fell and intercepted it from her view. Even then she would neither retire to the cabin, nor take food; but commanding a couch to be placed on the deck, she there waited with fond impatience the return of day. Fortune soothed her on this occasion. The weather proving calm, the vessel made little progress during the night, so that Mary, in the morning, had once more an opportunity of seeing the French coast. She sat up on her couch, and still anxiously looking toward the land, often repeated with a sigh," Farewell, France! farewell, beloved country, which I shall never more behold"." The reception of Mary in her native realm, the civil wars of France, and the share which Elizabeth took in the affairs of both kingdoms, must furnish the subject of another letter. Cabala, p. 374.-Spotswood, p. 177. LETTER LXVIII. History of France, England, and Scotland, from the Return of Mary Stuart to her native Kingdom, in 1561, till her Imprisonment, and the Elevation of her Son to the Throne; with a retrospective View of the Affairs of Spain. THE first appearance of affairs in Scotland was more favourable than Mary had reason to expect. She was received by her subjects with the loudest acclamations of joy, and with every demonstration of regard. Being now in her nineteenth year, the bloom of youth, and the beauty and gracefulness of her person, drew universal admiration, while her elegant manners and enlightened understanding commanded general respect. To the accomplishments of her own sex, she added many of the acquisitions of ours. She was skilled in various languages, ancient as well as modern. The progress she had made in poetry, music, rhetoric, and all the arts and sciences then esteemed useful or ornamental, was far beyond what is commonly attained by the sons and daughters of royalty, who are born and educated as the immediate heirs of a crown; and a courteous affability, which, without lessening the dignity of a sovereign, steals on the hearts of subjects with a bewitching insinuation, rendered her other qualities more engaging'. The first measures of Mary's administration confirmed the prepossesions entertained in her favour. According to the advice of D'Oisel and her uncles, she bestowed her confidence entirely on the leaders of the Protestant party 2, who were alone able, she found, to support her government. The prior of St. Andrews, whom she soon after created earl of Murray, obtained the chief authority; and, under him, Maitland of Lethington, a man of great sagacity, had a principal share of her confidence. Her choice could not have fallen upon persons more agreeable to her people. But there was one circumstance which blasted all these promising appearances, and deprived Mary of that general favour which her amiable manners, and prudent measures gave her just reason to expect. She was still a papist; and although she published, soon after her arrival, a proclamation, commanding every 1 Robertson, book iii. from Brantome. 2 Id. Ibid. |