pointed at Bayonne, between Charles IX. now in his sixteenth year, and his sister the queen of Spain. Catharine of Medicis accompanied her son; the duke of Alva attended his mistress. Gaiety, festivity, love, and joy, seemed to be the sole occupation of both courts; but, under these smiling appearances, was devised a scheme the most bloody and the most destructive to the repose of mankind that had ever been suggested by superstition to the human heart. Nothing less was concerted than the extermination of the Protestants in France and the Low Countries, and the extinction of the reformed opinions throughout Europe'. Of this Catholic or Holy League (for so that detestable A.D. conspiracy was called) an account was brought, by the 1566. French ambassador, to the queen of Scots; and she was intreated, in the name of the king of France, not to restore the leaders of the Protestants in her kingdom to power and favour, at a time when the Popish princes of the continent were combined for the total extirpation of that sect'. Deeply tinctured with all the prejudices of popery, and devoted with the most humble submission to her uncles the princes of Lorrain, whose counsels from her infancy she had been accustomed to receive with filial respect, Mary instantly joined the confederacy:hence she was induced to change her resolution with regard to the banished lords'. The effects of this new system were soon visible in her conduct. The parliament was summoned for the attainder of the rebels, whose guilt was palpable, and some measures were concerted for re-establishing the Romish religion in Scotland'; so that the ruin of Murray and his party seemed now inevitable, and the destruction of the reformed church no distant event, when an unexpected incident saved both, and brought on, in the sequel, the ruin of Mary herself. The incident to which I allude is the murder of David Rizzio, a man whose birth and education afforded little reason to suppose that he would ever attract the historian's notice, but whose death, and its consequences, render it necessary to record his adventures. The son of a teacher of music at Turin, and himself a musician, Rizzio had accompanied the Piedmontese ambassador into Scotland, where he gained admittance into the queen's family by his skill in his profession; and as Mary found him 1 Thuan. lib. xxxvii.-Davila, lib. iii. VOL. II. D 2 Melvil. necessary to complete her musical band, she retained him in her service, by permission, after the departure of his master. Shrewd, supple, and aspiring, he quickly crept into the queen's favour; and her French secretary happening to retire into his own country, she promoted Rizzio to that office. He now began to make a figure at court, and to appear as a man of weight and consequence; and he was soon regarded as the queen's confidential adviser, even in politics. To him the whole train of suitors and expectants applied; and among the rest Darnley, whose marriage Rizzio promoted, in hopes of acquiring a new patron, while he co-operated with the wishes of his mistress. But this marriage, so natural and so inviting in all its circumstances, disappointed the expectations both of the queen and her favourite, and terminated in events the most shocking to humanity. Allured by the stature, symmetry, and exterior accomplishments of Darnley, Mary, in her choice, had overlooked the qualities of his mind, which corresponded ill with those of his person. As his temper was violent yet variable, she could neither by her gentleness bridle his insolent and imperious spirit, nor preserve him by her vigilance from rash and imprudent actions. Of mean understanding, but, like most fools, conceited of his own abilities, he was devoid of all gratitude, because he thought no favours equal to his merit; and being addicted to low pleasures, to drunkenness and debauchery, he was incapable of any true sentiments of love or tenderness'. All Mary's fondness and generosity made no lasting impression on such a heart. He became, by degrees, careless of her person, and a stranger to her company. To a woman and a queen such behaviour was intolerable, particularly to one who possessed great sensibility, and who, in the first effusions of her love, had taken a pride in exalting her husband beyond measure. She had granted him the title of King, and had joined his name with her own in all public acts. Her disappointed passion was therefore as violent, when roused into resentment, as her first affection had been strong; and his behaviour appeared ungenerous and criminal, in proportion to the original superiority of her rank, and the honour and consequence to which she had raised him. The heart sore from the wounds and the agitations of unrequited love, naturally seeks the repose, the consolation, and the lenient assuasives of friendship. Rizzio still possessed the confidence of Mary; and as the brutal behaviour of her husband Goodall, vol. i.-Robertson, book iv. rendered a confidant now more necessary, she seems not only to have made use of her secretary's company and his musical talents to soothe her disquieted bosom, but to have imprudently shared with him her domestic griefs. To suppose that he also shared her embraces, is to offer an injury to her character for which history affords no proper foundation'. But the assuming vanity of the upstart, who affected to talk often and familiarly with the queen in public, and who boasted of his intimacy in private; the dark and suspicious mind of Darnley, who, instead of imputing Mary's coldness to his own misconduct, which had so justly deserved it, ascribed the change in her behaviour to the influence of a new passion; together with the rigid austerity of the Scottish clergy, who would allow no freedoms, contributed to spread this opinion among the people, ever ready to listen to any slander on the court; and the enemies of the favourite, no less ready to take advantage of any popular clamour, made it a pretence for their unjust and inhuman vengeance. Rizzio, who had connected his interests with the Catholics, was the declared enemy of the banished lords; and by promoting the violent prosecution against them, he had exposed himself to the animosity of their numerous friends and adherents. Among these were the lords Ruthven and Lindsay, the earl of Morton, and Maitland of Lethington. While they were ruminating upon their grievances, and the means of redress, the king communicated his resolution to be revenged on Rizzio to lord Ruthven, and implored his assistance and that of his friends towards the execution of his design. Nothing could be more acceptable to the whole party than such an overture. The murder of the favourite was instantly agreed upon, and as quickly carried into execution. Morton having secured the gates of the palace with a hundred and sixty armed men, the king, accompanied by the other conspirators, entered the queen's apartment, by a private passage, while she was at supper with Rizzio and other courtiers. Alarmed at such an unusual visit, she demanded the reason of this rude intrusion. The malecontents answered her by pointing to Rizzio, who immediately retired behind the queen's chair, and seized her by the waist, 1 Buchanan, whose prejudices are well known, is the only Scottish historian who directly accuses Mary of a criminal love for Rizzio. Knox, notwithstanding his violence and inveteracy, only slightly insinuates that such a suspicion was entertained. But the silence of Randolph, the English resident, a man abundantly ready to mention, and to aggravate Mary's faults, and who does not once intimate that her confidence in Rizzio contained any thing criminal, is a sufficient vindication of her innocence in this respect. hoping that the respect due to her royal person would prove some protection to him. But the conspirators had gone too far to be restrained by punctilios. George Douglas eagerly took the king's dagger, and stuck it into the body of Rizzio, who, screaming with fear and agony, was torn from Mary, and pushed into an adjoining room, where he was dispatched with many wounds'. "I will weep no more," said the queen, drying her tears, when informed of her favourite's fate;-"I shall now think of revenge." The insult on her person, the stain attempted to be fixed on her honour, and the danger to which her life was exposed on account of the advanced state of her pregnancy, were injuries so atrocious and complicated, as scarcely indeed to admit of pardon, even from the greatest lenity. Mary's resentment, however, was implacable against her husband alone. She artfully engaged him, by her persuasions and caresses, to disown all connexion with the conspirators, whom he had promised to protect; to deny any concurrence in their crime; and even to publish a proclamation containing so notorious a falsehood. And having thus made him expose himself to universal contempt, and rendered it impracticable for him to acquire the confidence of any party, she threw him off with disdain and indignation. As her anger, absorbed by injuries more recent and violent, had subsided from former offenders, she had been reconciled to the banished lords. They were reinstated in their honours and fortunes. The accomplices in Rizzio's murder, who had fled into England on being deserted by Darnley, also applied to her for pardon and although she at first refused compliance, she afterward, through the intercession of Bothwell, a new favourite, who was desirous of strengthening his party by the accession of their interest, permitted them to return into their own country3. The hour of Mary's labour now approached; and as it seemed imprudent to expose her person, unprotected, to the insults which she might suffer in a kingdom torn by faction, she left the palace, and made the castle of Edinburgh the place of her residence. There she was safely delivered of a son; and this being a very important event to England as well as to Scotland, she instantly dispatched sir James Melvil to London with the interesting intelligence. It struck Elizabeth forcibly and by surprise. She had given a ball to her court at June 19. 2 Keith, Append.--Goodall. 1 Melvil.-Keith.-Crawford. 3 Melvil.-Keith.-Knox. Greenwich on the evening of Melvil's arrival, and was displaying all that spirit and gaiety which usually attended her on such occasions; but no sooner was she informed of the birth of the prince, than all her vivacity left her. Sensible of the superiority her rival had now acquired, she sunk into deep melancholy she reclined her head upon her hand, the tears flowing down her cheek, and complained to some of her attendants, that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she herself was but a barren stock'. The next morning, however, at the audience of the ambassador, she resumed her wonted cheerfulness and dissimulation; thanked Melvil for his haste in bringing her such agreeable news, and expressed the most cordial friendship for "her sister Mary." The birth of a son, as Elizabeth foresaw, gave additional zeal as well as weight to the partisans of the queen of Scots in England; and even men of the most opposite parties began to call aloud for some settlement of the crown. The English queen had now reigned almost eight years, without discovering the least intention to marry. A violent illness, with which she was seized, had lately endangered her life, and alarmed the nation with a prospect of all the calamities that are occasioned by a disputed and dubious succession. A motion was therefore made, and eagerly listened to in both houses of parliament, for addressing the queen on the subject. It was urged, that her love for her people, her duty to the public, her concern for posterity, equally called upon her, either to declare her own resolution to marry, or consent to an act establishing the order of succession to the crown 2. . Elizabeth's ambitious and masculine character, and her repeated declarations, that she meant to live and die a VIRGINQUEEN, rendered it improbable that she would take the first of these steps; and as no title to the crown could, with any colour of justice, be set in opposition to that of the queen of Scots, most of the English nobility seemed convinced of the necessity of declaring her the presumptive successor. The union of the two kingdoms was a desirable object to all discerning men; and the birth of the prince of Scotland gave hopes of its perpetuity. Even the more moderate Protestants, soothed by Mary's lenity to her own subjects, concurred with the Catholics in supporting her claim". Nor would all the policy and address of Elizabeth 1 Melvil. 2 D'Ewes' Journ. of Parliament. 3 Melvil. |