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QUEEN MARY'S BOOK A COLLECTION OF POEMS AND ESSAYS
BY
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
QUEEN MA! BOOK
A COLLECTION S
AND ESSAYS BY MARY QUEEN OF SCO'i
EDITED BY
MRS. P. STEWART-MACKENZIE AkbUT " En ma Jin est tntm comm<
LONDON
GEORGE BELL ANF ^ r C
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1907 r
QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
A COLLECTION OF POEMS
AND ESSAYS BY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
EDITED BY
MRS. P. STEWART-MACKENZIE ARBUTHNOT
" En ma fin est man commencement"
LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1907 ^\r
Dfl
flifla
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
ELECTRONIC VERSION AVAILABLE
No.
fr>ovop 4 1
" Antipathy, like flattery, is the worst critic."
WALTER SICHEL.
" Only— but this is rare —
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd,
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our heart And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again : The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean we say, and what we would, we know."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
PREFACE
THE reader will understand that the compositions of Mary Stuart which are brought together in this volume were all, with the exception perhaps of some of the Sayings at the end, originally written either in French or Latin. What the originals were like may be gathered partly from the facsimile reproductions which appear amongst the illustrations and partly from the Appendix No. VII, which gives one of the Essays in French, and shows the amount of altera- tion which it underwent. For the general reader the translations, which are partially borrowed from Miss Strickland and are partially my own work, will pro- bably give a better idea of Mary's inner life, the thoughts, moods, and feelings which swept over her throughout her troubled career, than would the some- what illegible originals.
The portrait which forms the frontispiece has been chosen as being perhaps the most pleasing likeness among those which are undoubtedly authentic. The other illustrations are facsimiles of original documents preserved in various public collections, the State Paper Office, the Bodleian Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg.
A. J. A.
October , 1907.
vn
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE . . vii
INTRODUCTION " . . i
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 41
QUATRAIN WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF PRAYERS, 1559 . 84
VERSES ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS II, 1560 . . 85 "THE DIAMOND SPEAKS," A POEM ADDRESSED TO
ELIZABETH, is62(?). . . . . . 89
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH, 1566 ... 91
REFLECTIONS AT LOCHLEVEN, 1567-8 . . . 98
SONNET TO ELIZABETH, 1568 (?) , - , .. .- 100
FAREWELL TO HER BANISHED SERVANTS, 1571 . . 102
MEDITATION IN VERSE, 1573 . . . . . 106
POEM ON SACRIFICE, 1573 . . . . . m
POEM ADDRESSED TO THE BlSHOP OF ROSS, AFTER
HIS LIBERATION FROM PRISON, 1574 . . . 112
VERSES WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF HOURS, 1579 (?) . 113 ESSAY ON ADVERSITY, 1580 . . . . .116
"Two THOUGHTS," A POEM, 1582 (?) . . .128 A POEM ON RESIGNATION, i583(?) . . . .129
SONNET TO RONSARD, 1583 (?) . . . . . 131
ESSAY ON THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT . . . 132
A POEM ON LIFE, 1586 (?) 135
LINES COMPOSED ON THE MORNING OF HER EXECU- TION, 1587 136
VARIOUS SAYINGS OF MARY STUART, FROM CON- TEMPORARY SOURCES 137
x CONTENTS
PAGE
APPENDIX I. THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY . . 147 „ II. MARY'S LOVE OF READING, AND THE
COUPLETS COMPOSED BY HER . .150 „ III. THE CASKET SONNETS . . . .154 „ IV. MARY'S POEMS IN THE ORIGINAL
FRENCH , 158
„ V. DATE OF THE POEM "ADAMAS LOQUI- TUR" 171
„ VI. THE ST. PETERSBURG MISSAL . .176 „ VII. THE "ESSAY ON ADVERSITY" IN THE
ORIGINAL FRENCH . . . . 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF MARY STUART AT THE AGE OF NINE- TEEN, IN WIDOW'S DRESS . . Frontispiece (The original in the possession of H.M. the King, at Windsor.) LATIN ESSAY WRITTEN BY MARY STUART IN HER
TWELFTH YEAR, 1554 . . . facing 50
(From the original MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)
A SECOND LATIN ESSAY FROM THE SAME MS. facing 64 VERSES WRITTEN BY MARY STUART IN A BOOK OF
HOURS DURING HER IMPRISONMENT . fating 88
(From the original MS. in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg.)
A SECOND EXAMPLE FROM THE SAME MS. . facing 114 THE "ESSAY ON ADVERSITY," WRITTEN BY MARY STUART DURING HER CAPTIVITY IN ENGLAND
facing 126
(From the original MS. in the State Paper Office, London.) A POEM ON LIFE, BY MARY STUART . . facing 134
(From the original MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.)
ERRATUM
P. 127, line 2 should read
" Omnia quae scripta sunt nostra doctrina scripta sunt." l
INTRODUCTION
THE CHARACTER OF MARY STUART
THE writer of historical fiction has certain dis- tinct advantages over the mere biographer, especially where delineation of character is concerned. For the conscientious historian is perpetually checked and thwarted by the recognized limitations that re- strict him to such documents as may happen to be extant and within his reach, and, in order to illustrate his view, may stray only very few steps beyond the boundary of the proved into the probable, or from the ascertained to the inferred. This is why the historian who keeps to the letter of his warrant often develops a style of singular coldness and aloofness, while the personages we meet with in his pages are not much more to us than names. While we see him busily employed in dissecting the dry bones of history, we miss the creative touch that should have clothed these skeletons with flesh and blood. History written in this spirit is little else than a dictionary of facts, or a collection of evidences leading to no conclusion. Valuable, perhaps, as a work of reference, it is not litera- ture, nor is it art, and it can never be more than half the truth. Let us have a little less of the un-inspired cross-examination of the police-courts. Let us have
B
2 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
the bias of a little human sympathy — something in which we feel the conviction and enlightenment that are part of a wide fellow-feeling with humanity.
" Toutcomprendre^c'est tout pat -donner" 'and we must stray far indeed beyond the rigid lines of proven facts when we seek to recall to life the actors in the historic drama. Without imagination, there can be no sym- pathy; without sympathy, no comprehension. And here it is that the historical novelist has such an in- estimable advantage over his more precise rival, for he has it in his power not only to create for his char- acters a special environment, but to place them in scenes and situations where their leading character- istics will be displayed to the best advantage. He can turn the lights on and off, and (perhaps most im- portant of all), ring down the curtain at the right moment. He can give a force and vitality to his art- istic representation of the subject that would be quite lacking to a scrupulous relation of ascertained fact. And, what is more, his rendering might be the truer of the two — truer in essence if not in detail — for, as Robert Louis Stevenson has said, to tell the truth is not so much to state the facts as to convey a right impression.
I say this much to remind my readers of the in- evitable difficulty one finds in realizing and describing a character such as Mary Stuart's, over which not only posterity but her own contemporaries have never come to a final agreement. For in her case the evid- ence we have to consider is peculiarly conflicting; there seems, indeed, to be no medium between the
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 3
friends who loved and were ready to die for her, and the enemies who found no epithets in the language too cruel or too bitter to hurl at her head.
Which of the two views are we to adopt? Shall we follow the relentless Buchanan, who lived long in her company and under her protection, and who has painted in such lurid colours the portrait of a de- praved and pitiless criminal? Or Murray, who always spoke so moderately, and yet treated her with such consistent and merciless severity? Or Knox, less the apostle of a purified Christianity than of a savage and revengeful kind of Judaism — Knox, the enemy of compromise and toleration, who preached violence and condoned murder — is he a desirable guide? Let us examine more closely into the credentials of these three important and hostile witnesses. Mary had saved Buchanan's life in France, where he was threat- ened with the stake. He had often employed his eloquent pen in writing adulatory poems to her who in the days of her misfortune he defamed. His talents seem always to have been at the service of the party in power. The period during which he afterwards represented Mary as openly and shame- lessly defying every principle of morality and every tradition of queenliness was the very one during which he occupied himself in composing enthusiastic verses in her praise. Literary dishonesty like Bu- chanan's can plead no extenuation. Whether Mary were innocent or guilty, Buchanan stands self-con- demned as an unscrupulous and flagrant literary ad- venturer. Murray, who does not come stainless
4 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
through the tumult of crime that swallowed up her brief reign, owed his position in the state to her favour. He was her creature, to use his own phrase, and he gained by her downfall, as it necessarily raised him from the position of the first of her subjects to practical sovereignty. It was necessary for his justi- fication that he should prove her unfit to reign. And Knox? Had he the right to cavil? He roughly re- fused Mary's request that he should admonish her of her faults in private ("if you hear anything of myself that you mislike, come to myself and tell me, and I shall hear "), preferring instead to exasperate her by public attacks in his sermons. Even if we should grant for a moment that Mary was the monster of iniquity that he believed her to be, still we may well ask the question whether Knox and his methods are wholly free from responsibility for her ruin?
And among her defenders, shall we interrogate Leslie, her tried and trusted councillor, the historian of her reign, who, though sometimes miserably puzzled, yet believed in Mary's essential innocence to the last? Or Sir James Melville, who writes with such tender respect, even while bemoaning that brief wild interval when he saw " that good Princess run to utter wreck, and nobody to forewarn her! " l Or Brant6me, the chivalrous Frenchman, who had known her from childhood, and who has left such warm and unqualified testimony to her character? 2 Or Nau, her secretary,
1 " Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhill," London, 1683.
2 See "Vies des Dames Illustres de Son Temps," par le Seigneur de Brantome, Leyden, 1665.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 5
who pleads so persuasively? Or Blackwood, Caussin, Bourgoing and the anonymous, but well-informed author of the " Mort de la Royne d'Escoce,"1 to all of whom she was nothing less than a saint and a martyr?
Against her enemies we must always remember that there is a strong bias of political interest in at- tacking her. Against her friends, the partiality of an affection touching and wonderful in the annals of human friendship — an affection so pure and disinter- ested, so loyal and so true, that we must leave the psychologist to explain how such a sentiment could attach itself so persistently, so overwhelmingly, to one whose career was stained with infamy and crime? Surely a character is known by its influence, as a tree by its fruits? And love is a strange blossom to find springing from a stem of vice and hypocrisy. Knox, puzzled and suspicious, spoke of the " enchantment whereby men are bewitched." Perhaps a more charit- able critic would define otherwise the sentiment that hallowed the darkest moments of Mary's tragic life. In the lonely isolation of Lochleven, in the gloom and misery of her English prisons, there was always this one gift of which no one could rob her — the love of her faithful friends.
We cannot venture here into the details of the charges brought against Mary. In spite of all that Mr. Lang and Mr. Henderson have lately written, the verdict remains one of " not proven," leaving us free to take the most humane and merciful view. In-
1 Published in Paris, 1589, and printed in Jebb's " De Vita et Rebus Gestis Mariae Scotorum Reg.," London, 1725.
6 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
fallibility is not the prerogative of scholars and his- torians ; we may look for it with as much, and perhaps more, reason in the intuitions of the unlearned. Is there not a certain significance in the fact that the "vox populi" has so persistently declared itself in Mary's favour? Who shall say what underlying cause, what hidden instinct, has inspired Mary's humblest defenders with such conviction and such ardour? Let us grant that a knowledge of Latin is of the first im- portance, and that a perfect acquaintance with all the facts of the case is indispensable, and yet let us give to sentiment its due. May there not be occasions when the witness of one friend will confute that of fifty enemies, since, after all those understand us who love us best?
Love, indeed, is not necessarily so blind as we are sometimes assured. Perhaps where it seems partial it shows but a clearer vision. Perhaps it discerns behind the travesty of human mistakes the soul that has waited to reveal itself until love, the divine messenger, after many days unlocks the door.
Let us hear, then, the testimony of those who loved Mary, taking it for granted that whatever else was true of her, yet this, ultimately, was truest. And since it is almost impossible to avoid a bias towards one side or another, let us be content that ours is the bias of leniency, of pity, and of palliation. So shall we bring to our task something of the insight and in- tuition that come through sympathy, and so, perhaps, draw nearest to the elusive personality and veiled soul of this unhappy queen.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 7
And first of all come the echoes from her child- hood, and all at once, before our eyes, rises the long- ago vision of a brilliant and literary court, of a society where laughter and learning were combined, of mar- ble palaces springing up among wild forests full of wolves and bears, of broad mirrored lakes, rippling fountains and artificial caves, of alleys that suggested an almost Italian dream of cypress and white marble.1 And among it all, a little girl on whose spirit the fer- vour of the Renaissance was already laying its magic touch — a little girl bending over her books, learning not only to understand but to love the classics, and drawing from their treasured pages maxims to illus- trate " what we should be, who are examples to the people!"2
From time to time we catch glimpses of her in the letters of the period. During this portion of her life, the reports are at least unanimous. The impression is a pleasing one. Her nature is gentle, unselfish, affec- tionate and diffident, and already we become aware of that curious personal charm that defies analysis. Already its spontaneous influence may be traced.
"Notre petite reinette d'Escoce? said Catherine de' Medici, " has but to smile to turn the heads of all Frenchmen." 3
1 See the description of Fontainebleau in the Journal of Am- bassadors from Mary I to Henri II, 1555, quoted by Miss Strick- land, " Lives of the Queens of Scotland," vol. iii, p. 52.
2 See Exercise XXII, written by Mary in her twelfth year, p. 56 of this volume.
3 <; Lettres de Catherine de' Medici," edited by the Comte de la Ferriere, Paris, 1880, p. liv.
8 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
" The said lady, your daughter," writes the Cardinal of Lorraine to Mary of Guise in 1552, " improves and increases every day in beauty, wisdom, and worth. She is so perfect and accomplished in all things hon- ourable and virtuous that her equal is not to be found in this realm, whether among noble damsels, maidens of low degree, or in middle station; and I must tell you, Madam, that the King [Henri II] has taken such a fancy to her that he spends much of his time in chatting with her, sometimes by the hour together; and she knows as well how to entertain him with pleasant and sensible subjects of conversation, as if she were a woman of five-and-twenty." He mentions also that " meanness is the thing she hates most in the world." l
" You have the best and prettiest little queen in the world," writes Anne d'Este; "her talk and carriage are so discreet that we no longer think of or treat her as a child."
"My child," said her warrior uncle, the Due de Guise, " there is one trait in which, above all others, I recognize my blood in you — you are as brave as my bravest men-at-arms. If women went into battle now, as they did in ancient times, I think you would well know how to die!"
As we trace the development of her character through her childish days, we find Brantome, who
1 Letter from the Cardinal of Lorraine to Mary of Guise, 25th February, 1552-3, in Prince Alexander LabanofFs " Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," vol. i, p. 9. Quoted by Miss Strick- land.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 9
had so many opportunities of observing her, a fascin- ating guide. He has, of course, much to say of her personal beauty, which, he tells us, " was equalled by that of the soul. For she had made herself proficient in Latin, and, having reached the age of thirteen or fourteen, she delivered a Latin speech of her own composition in the gallery of the Louvre, before King Henri, the Queen, and all the Court — demonstrating and maintaining, in opposition to the general opinion, that it was very necessary for women to be instructed in letters and art. Imagine," exclaims the enthusiastic Frenchman, " what a rare and admirable thing it was to hear this learned and beautiful queen thus declaim in Latin, which she understood and spoke so well: for I saw her there myself. . . . She expressed her- self, however, with more ease and eloquence in French, which she spoke more fluently than if she had been born in France. It really did one good to observe the grace of her manner, whether she spoke to high or low; and during all the time she spent in France, she always set aside two hours a day for study and reading. She loved poets and poetry above all things, but especially Monsieur de Ronsard, Monsieur du Bellay, and Monsieur de Maison Fleur, who wrote some beautiful poems and elegies for her — even on the subject of her departure from France — which I have often seen her reading to herself both in France and in Scotland, with tears in her eyes and sighs in her heart. " She occupied herself in trying to write poetry, and I have seen some beautiful and well-expressed verses of her composition. . . . She would often retire
io QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
into her cabinet, and, returning after a brief interval, show her attempts to any of us honest folk who hap- pened to be present. Besides this, she wrote very well in prose, above all in her letters, of which I have seen many that were very fine and elegant and elevated in tone. And whenever she conversed with anyone, she spoke in a very gentle, refined, and agreeable tone, and with a majestic ease mingled with a discreet and modest reserve. Even her native language, which in itself is provincial, barbarous, harsh, and uncouth, she spoke so gracefully and moulded it in such a way that it became quite beautiful and agreeable to listen to in her, though not in others.
" Imagine what virtue did her charm and grace possess, that she could thus transform a barbarous grossness into civility and graceful expressiveness. And we need not marvel that, being arrayed a la sauvage (as I have seen her) and in the barbarous costume of the savages of her country,1 she appeared — in a mortal body and in coarse, wild clothing — like a real goddess. Those who saw her thus arrayed may testify that this is the very truth ; and those who have not seen it may know her portrait painted in this cos- tume. And I have heard the King and Queen say that in it she appeared more beautiful, more agree- able, and more desirable than in any other. . . . She possessed also this perfection, in order further to fas- cinate the world, that her voice was very gentle and sweet; for she sang very well, accompanying herself on the lute, which she touched very prettily with that 1 Is this an allusion to the Scottish tartan?
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART u
beautiful white hand of hers, and those fair shapely ringers which rivalled those of Aurora, What more can I recall of her beauty, unless, indeed, what used to be said of her? — that the sunshine of her native Scotland in no way resembled her, for in that land sometimes there were not five hours of sunshine in the year; and she always shone so brightly that with her clear rays she benefited her land and her people, who had more need of light than any other, being from their situation so far removed from the great sun of heaven. Ah! Kingdom of Scotland, I think that now your days are even shorter than they were before, and your nights longer, since you have lost that princess who illuminated you!"1
Doubtless Brantdme's description is too highly coloured. He was carried away by sentiment, and could see no fault in his favourite. Yet, during her stay in France, we find other testimony to her character little likely to be unduly favourable. The suspicious scrutiny of Elizabeth's envoy, Throckmorton, finds nothing but praises to report of her at this period. " I see her behaviour to be such," he writes, "and her queenly modesty so great, in that she thinketh herself not too wise . . . but is content to be ruled by good council, which is a great virtue in a prince or princess, and which argueth a great judgment and wisdom in her, that by these means she cannot do amiss." 2
1 " Ah ! royaume d'Escosse, je crois que maintenant vos jours sont encore bien plus courts q'ils n'estoient, et vos nuicts plus longues, puisque vous avez perdu cette princesse qui vous illumi- noit!"
2 Throckmorton to the Privy Council, 3ist December, 1560.
12
QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
The brightest part of Mary's life— perhaps the only part of it that can be called really happy — was ended when she looked her last on France. It was almost with a presentiment of coming doom that the young queen tore herself away from the land of so many tender memories to return to her northern kingdom among the heather and the mists. Brantdme tells us that she dreaded her departure as if it had been death. We seem almost to see the slim, girlish figure standing persistently in the poop of the vessel, her pale face agitated with tears, the large eyes straining through the gathering darkness for a last glimpse of what to her was home.
" Farewell! " she repeated sadly, " farewell, beloved France! I believe I shall never see thee more." l
In Scotland the scene was changed indeed. She gazed on a world no longer smiling and beautiful, but grim, sinister, and threatening. How bleak and gloomy were her frowning northern strongholds after the fairy palaces of France ! How strange the cold suspicion of her Scottish subjects compared with the devotion and idealism that had greeted her so spon- taneously under sunnier skies! She could not under- stand their sour morality, nor they her half-artistic yearning for the sunshine of life. To them her religion was idolatry, her laughter a crime, her dancing " un- comely for honest women." *
1 "Vies des Dames Illustres de Son Temps," par le Seigneur de Brantome.
2 Knox's " History of the Reformation." Knox records that Mary told her ladies that "she saw nothing in Scotland but
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 13
But just at first the return of their queen — so young, so fair, so sad — seemed to thrill and awaken all the national traditions of loyalty and allegiance, even among those who had but lately been engaged in treacherous dealings with the English queen. The people flocked to see their young sovereign in a frenzy of enthusiasm and excitement. " Happy was he or she that first might have the presence of the queen," writes John Knox; "the Protestants were not the slowest, and therein," he adds, with unusual magnanimity, " they were not to be blamed." l Castle- nau relates that "she exerted herself to please, so far as was possible, both great and small, and made such a favourable impression upon her subjects from the very first, that Scotland considered itself happy in possessing a queen who was among the most beautiful and perfect of the ladies of her time."2 And Sir James Melville, always a friendly witness, gives us some account of the impression Mary first created — an impression which later prejudices never quite effaced.
" The Queen's Majesty," he writes, " as I have said, after her returning out of France, behaved herself so princely, honourably, and discreetly, that her reputa- tion spread itself in all countries. She was deter- mined, and of herself inclined, to continue so unto
gravity, which repugned altogether to her nature, for she was brought up mjoyousette."
1 Knox's " History of the Reformation."
2 " Memoirs of Michel de Castlenau, Seigneur de Mauvis- siere," in Jebb,
I4 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
the end of her life, desiring to entertain none in her company but such as were of the best conversation, abhorring all vices and vicious persons." l
Mary begged Melville to accept the post of her private monitor, begging him earnestly to tell her of any faults he noticed in her. She said " she knew she had committed divers errors, upon no ill-meaning, only for the want of the admonition of loving and concerned friends. Because that the greatest part of courtiers commonly flatter princes, to insinuate for their favour, and will not tell them the truth, fearing thereby to disoblige them."
Melville tells us that he protested against this charge. " It was," he protested, " a very ruinous com- mission," and he begged her to confer this office upon her brother Murray, or upon her secretary Lething- ton. " She answered, she would not take it in so good part from them as from me. I said I was afraid that through process of time it would cause me to lose her favour. She said it appeared I entertained an ill-opinion of her constancy and discretion: which opinion she doubted not I would alter after I had undertaken and practised that friendly and familiar charge."
Mary did not neglect the serious business of govern- ment that claimed a large portion of her time. Miss Strickland notices that she had considerable talent for domestic legislation, and instances her revival of the noble appointment of her father, of an advocate
1 " Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhill," published post- humously in 1683.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 15
to plead the causes of the poor. Mary herself often presided in the courts while these cases were being tried, "for more equity." She seems, for a time at least, to have reconciled the discordant and hostile elements in her cabinet with wonderful success.1 She was usually present in the council-chamber herself, " sewing some work or other," as Randolph tells us,2 and Sir Thomas Craig, one of her privy councillors, describes her as follows :
" I have often heard the most serene Princess Mary, Queen of Scotland, discourse so appositely and ration- ally in all affairs which were brought before the Privy Council, that she was admired by all. And when most of the councillors were silent, being astonished, they straight declared themselves to be of her opinion, she rebuked them sharply and exhorted them to speak freely, as becomes unprejudiced councillors, against her opinion, that the best reasons only might over- rule their determinations. And truly her reasonings were so strong and clear that she could turn their hearts to what she pleased. She had not studied law, and yet, by the natural light of her judgment, when she reasoned of matters of equity and justice, she oft-
1 At a later and very critical period, when Darnley's sullen conduct was giving the greatest anxiety, the French ambassa- dor, M. du Croc, writes to the Archbishop of Glasgow as follows : " I never saw her Majesty so much beloved, esteemed, and honoured ; nor so great a harmony amongst all her subjects as at present is by her wise conduct, for I cannot perceive the smallest difference or division." See Keith's " Affairs of Church and State in Scotland," vol. ii, p. 451.
2 Randolph to Cecil, 24th October, 1561.
16 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
times had the advantage of the ablest lawyers. Her other discourses and actions were suitable to her great judgment. No word ever dropped from her mouth that was not exactly weighed and pondered. As for her liberality and other virtues, they are well known."1 We have glanced at Mary in her serious and thoughtful moods. We must not let the Mary of later years — careworn, weary, and disappointed — efface all memory of the sad little queen, still half a child, who, in 1561, looked on a tempestuous world with innocent, trustful eyes. The religious troubles were stern and bewildering. Can we wonder if she sometimes recoiled, if now and then her heart failed her, and she often shed tears (as Randolph records) for no apparent cause? Can we blame her if the busi- ness of state sometimes seemed too heavy, and the soft eyes cast wistful and yearning glances towards the southern horizon, beyond which lay all that she had loved and lost? Mary's temperament was ideal- istic. The melody of those early days still sounded in her ears ; the sunshine of bygone love and gaiety lingered in her heart. Past happiness seemed ever more real, more positive, than present discords. We fancy, as we study this portion of her life, that she always had a feeling that the old conditions must re- turn once more, that the jars and sorrows around her were unreal, and that she must struggle back again into the haven she remembered. She seemed always to be looking round her for love and sympathy, and to suffer treachery and dislike with a kind of shock. 1 Mackenzie's "Scottish Writers," 1708, vol. iii, p. 353.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 17
Her confidence was so easily given, so often and fatally betrayed ! Across the gap of more than three centuries echoes that pitiful cry: "Oh, my brother! if you had been here, you never would have allowed me to be so cruelly handled!" Even that brother — sullen, calculating, unrelenting, and even then en- gaged upon her ruin — even he was surprised to sud- den, incredible tears.
But the awakening was bound to come. It was as a disillusioned woman that Mary wrote to her aunt, the Duchesse de Guise, in 1 566, only a few weeks before the birth of her son : " I must leave these fair words to tell you in how short a time I have changed my rdle from that of one as happy and contented in her- self as it is possible to be, to perpetual troubles and vexations." !
Rizzio had, in fact, only a short time before, been murdered in her presence. Darnley's treachery had been made clear beyond a doubt. Her hour of peril approached, and found her surrounded by enemies she dared not punish, and friends she knew not how to trust. To the pitiful critic it must appear at this point that Mary's spirit was entirely broken. She had been struck at and betrayed by one whom she had tenderly loved. " Neither the memory of our early friendship, nor all the hope you can give me of the future, can ever make me forget it! "2 And later
1 Mary to the Duchesse de Guise, May, 1 566, in LabanofFs " Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," vol. i, p. 354.
2 Mary's speech to Darnley, as recorded by her secretary Claude Nau. See " Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots," by Nau, edited by Father Stevenson, S.J., Edinburgh, 1836.
C
i8 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
comes the mournful reiteration " I have forgiven all, but can never forget I"1 Not so very many months elapse between the murder of Rizzio and the mar- riage with Bothwell, and yet between them lies all the unwritten tragedy of a soul. In them the child- Mary dies for ever ; the laughter, the playfulness, the candour — yes, and in part the fair ideals, fade out of the story, and henceforth a different Mary comes into being — a woman whose proud spirit is crushed, whose enthusiasms are destroyed, whose aims are lowered and narrowed, and who has to a certain extent adapted her methods to the intriguing world in which her lot is cast. We need not marvel at the surrender. Mary stood absolutely alone. She was crushed, bewildered, miserable. All her natural energy and courage were in abeyance. She was sick unto death and weary of existence. She was heart-broken, soul-sick. — " Still she repeats these words : ' / could wish to be dead! ' " 2
Ah! beauty, gentleness, love, poetry, good inten- tions— where are you now? Fled, perhaps, to those desolate regions where must roam in pitiful and eternal unrest the spirits of life's lost chances and forlorn might-have-beens ! There are maladies of the soul more bitter, not less tragic, than any ills which can afflict the flesh. In the inner and mysterious life
1 See fragmentary " Historic of Mary Queen of Scots," by Lord Herries, Abbotsford edition.
2 See du Croc's letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, 2nd December, 1566, in Keith's "Affairs of Church and State," vol. i, p. xcvi.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 19
of the spirit there are chasms and yawning voids that strain towards the borders of insanity — treacherous quicksands in the depths of personality into which it is not good to penetrate too far, even in an attempt at definition. Who can say whence and wherefore come these dark clouds of despair, sweeping over the stricken soul to obscure or to distort its horizon? Dimly we must realize that these are morbid inter- vals, in which all progress is arrested — in which the frenzied spirit turns and rends itself. And recog- nizing these phenomena in the living world around us, shall we deny to them a possible sinister agency in the dim, shadowy hinterland of history? Shall we feel nothing but contempt at the spectacle of one for whom all principle, all better impulse, are temporarily dead, while upon the sea of adverse circumstance is scattered the drifting wreckage of a rudderless human soul?
Had such a bleak interval come to Mary Stuart now, and can we thus explain the ambiguity and silence that seem to brood over her during these few crucial weeks?
None of Mary's biographers have been able to penetrate the mystery. A character, at first open and responsive, becomes suddenly reserved and enigmatic. Terrible, shameful events follow one another, yet Mary's attitude remains silent and mechanical. She confides in no one, appeals for no sympathy, no help. Her letters during the most critical period of all are not written, only signed, by her. The day after her miserable marriage with Bothwell, Mary tells du Croc
20 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
that " he must not be surprised if he sees her sorrow- ful, for she cannot rejoice, nor ever will again. All she desires is death! " *
To come face to face with Mary thus is worth a whole volume of argument, inference, and generality. We do not draw so near to this suffering soul again for many long weeks, and in the interval we see her living on through degradation unspeakable. But her unhappiness is a fact, not a theory. It is obvious to all. " The Queen is the most changed woman in face that without extremity of illness they have seen," comments Drury at this time, repeating some current gossip.
As we follow her fate and draw near to that in- evitable point when the repressed misery becomes suddenly articulate, we recognize Mary still less. Melancholy is it now to witness the havoc wrought within that once gentle heart, and to note what sinister characters have inscribed themselves on that once innocent page. What cruel distortion of char- acter, what fatal aberration of a finely-moulded and much-tried nature, have transformed the noble and courageous soul of her we have loved into the image of some mad, tortured animal? There comes a time when we see the brave spirit of Mary Stuart sink beneath an accumulation of miseries — sink only to rise triumphant in the end. In the terrible hour after Carberry, what a soul's tragedy comes home to us in that woman's voice raised in wild, hysterical denuncia-
1 See letter from du Croc to Catherine de' Medici, i8th May, 1567, in Teulet's "Relations Politiques de la France et de 1'Espagne avec 1'Ecosse," vol. ii, p. 297.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 21
tion, reiterating mad threats of execution, of cruci- fixion! Who is this dark seeress at Lochleven, kneel- ing to call down in passionate accents the curse of heaven upon Sir William Douglas? Is this the nature of whose loveliness and purity we have long felt the spell? And, looking far ahead, shall we peruse that melancholy letter of hers to Elizabeth, in which she stoops to betray Lady Shrewsbury to her irate sove- reign?1 She only betrayed a traitor, it is true, but from Mary Stuart we expect a revenge more noble. We seem to have lost her for a moment, but we shall find her again in the end, after the long troubles have reached their climax, and another proof is furnished,
1 It is only fair to Mary to remark here that various writers have supposed that this letter was not written by her, but was forged in order to discredit her with Elizabeth. It may be seen in Lord Burleigh's correspondence in the Murdin State Papers, pp. 558-560, but Labanoff has not included it in his " Recueil." Miss Strickland (" Letters of Mary Queen of Scots," vol. ii, p. 93-4) says : " the scandal-letter is, however, so different in its style and contents from any undoubted specimen of Mary's pen, that its authenticity has been greatly doubted by most his- torians." There is no evidence in the records of the period that it was ever received by Elizabeth, but I am afraid it seems only too possible that Mary, demoralized by her misery, and acting on cruel provocation, did write the letter, or draft of a letter, as it seems rather to be, which appears to follow in natural sequence on her authentic letter to La Mauvissiere, of 2ist March, 1584, in which she says : " It will be sufficient if you tell the Queen of England that . . . you are convinced that if she would cause me to be asked quietly and privately about the Countess of Shrewsbury, I could disclose to her things of great importance and in which several of those about her would be deeply implicated, etc." (Strickland's " Letters of Mary Queen of Scots," vol. ii, p. 98.)
22 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
to borrow the words of Father Stevenson, " if any such were wanting, that every truly noble character is made perfect through suffering." l
Poor Mary! Perhaps history does not give us a more pathetic scene than that of the discrowned, un- happy queen turning away from her own sorrows on the melancholy morning of her execution to console the anguish of her weeping ladies with a few calm reflections. She told them, says Brantome, that " it was all nothing — the happiness of this world; and that she might well serve as an example of this to the greatest and smallest in the earth; for she, having been queen of the kingdoms of France and Scotland, of the one by birth and of the other by fortune, and after having triumphed pell-mell in honours and grandeur, was now reduced into the hands of an executioner, although innocent, which consoled her under every- thing." 2
If she suffered, yet finally she rose above her suffer-
1 Father Stevenson's Preface to Nau's " Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots."
2 It says something for the imperishable pathos of Mary's story that even so hard a critic as Mr. Andrew Lang is betrayed into momentary sensibility. I can forgive him a great deal for the really beautiful passage in his " History of Scotland," in which he brings Mary's sufferings to an end : " Mary was in danger no more. . . . The only prison which her enemies could trust to hold the queen had closed over her :
' To-night she doth inherit The vasty halls of death.'
May God have had more mercy than man on this predestined victim of uncounted treasons, of unnumbered wrongs : wrongs that warped, maddened and bewildered her noble nature, but
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 23
ing. If she wept, yet her tears taught her to under- stand many things and to see through the clouds and storms of life into the clear sunshine of hope beyond. Can we ever claim much more than this for our poor human clay? — that it should profit by its errors, and learn its irksome discipline in the school of sorrow?
In contrasting the triumph of Elizabeth with the humiliation of Mary Stuart, we sometimes ask our- selves after all, which was the true success and which the failure? In the game of worldly prosperity, Elizabeth won and Mary lost; but when we look at the matter closely, and consider which of the two women was the richer in the essential qualities of the soul that bring true happiness and peace of mind, does Mary need our pity so much after all? We find that she had friends who were capable of dying cheer- fully in her cause, or of languishing for nineteen years in close captivity for her sake. We find that she was worshipped by children and loved by animals.1 We find that she was able in the end to forgive not only her enemies, but her friends. Christianity has no more crucial test than this. And we find that she
never quenched her courage, never deadened her gratitude to a servant never shook her loyalty to a friend."
1 " Then one of the executioners . . . espied her little dogg, which was crept under her clothes, which could not be gotten forth but by force, yet afterward would not depart from the dead corpse, but came and lay betweene her head and her shoulders, which being embrued with her bloode, was carryed away and washed, etc. . . ." " A Report of the Manner of the Execution of the Sc. Q.," in Ellis's " Historical Letters," 2nd Series, vol. iii p. 117.
24 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
died with a calm and lofty heroism rarely, if ever, equalled in the history of her sex.
Then should we not rather pity the miserable woman who lured her to her ruin, deceived and persecuted her, betrayed her confidence, intrigued with her rebels, stole her jewels, tortured her with false hopes, failed only to have her secretly assassinated through the scruples of those she selected as her tools, and, having executed her, threw the onus and shame of the deed upon the servant who had obeyed her orders? The woman whose last hours were spent in an anguish of mind that appalled even the time-serving courtiers who stood round her — dying unreconciled, unloved, inconsolable. " My lord, I am tied with a chain of iron about my neck" — what a ring of despair there is in the feverish words! — " / am tied, I am tied, and the case is altered with me! " *
There is no need to moralize on such a scene. The calm report of history has a melancholy eloquence that needs no comment. The death of Elizabeth Tudor is a scene so terrible — such a sharp transition from might to weakness, from splendour to misery — that we may well pass on from it in silence.
Mary and Elizabeth ! How sadly and irrevocably the two names are linked together! On the long scroll of the centuries they stand out with mournful insist- ence, instinct with tragedy and pathos, written, one might fancy, in letters of blood. Elizabeth and Mary, Mary and Elizabeth, so it will read to the end of
1 " Lives of the Queens of England," by Agnes Strickland, vol. iv, p. 776.
CHARACTER OF MARY STUART 25
time, and those who could never be reconciled in life are inseparably and for ever associated in the ironic page of the past.
Mary always had a conviction that if they could have dealt directly with one another, and if other in- fluences had not come between them, all might have ended very differently.
She told Shrewsbury and Kent, who announced her death-sentence to her, that she attributed all her misfortunes since she took refuge in England " to the artifices and intrigues of the ministers of the Queen of England, who for their own private interests had never allowed them to meet."
And on the evening before her death she told her attendants that " she had never desired anything more in this world than to have an opportunity of seeing her [Elizabeth] just once, and speaking to her, know- ing well that if she had only once seen her, they would have come to a good understanding with one another, and would have settled their affairs so well, that there would have been no more troubles nor dissensions, nor rebellions in the two kingdoms." l
The wish was never realized. In death Elizabeth and Mary lie nearer to one another than they ever were in life. The wanderer in Westminster Abbey to-day looks with reverent and wistful eyes upon the two monuments — separated only by the breadth of Henry VI Ts Chapel — under which rest two who lost for ever life's opportunity for loving one another.
1 " Mort de la Royne d'Escosse," in J ebb's " De Vitaet Rebus Gestis Mariae Scotorum Reg.," London, 1725.
26 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
How melancholy is the train of thought started by this reflection! Too late, and for ever too late to re- concile life's differences, to rectify its mistakes. And yet, in the calm, still twilight of the Abbey, another, truer comprehension seems to come to us, and the story brings a different message. For Death, while it seemed to seal their estrangement, has withdrawn all bitterness, all animosity from those two strenuous hearts, and though their quarrel is still fiercely waged by keen partisans on either side, yet Mary and Eliza- beth have forgiven one another long ago.
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS
The troubles of Mary Stuart did not end with her death. Her posthumous vicissitudes have been many and varied. She has passed from one biographer to another, a victim to the dissecting-knife of modern criticism, and the treatment of each operator has been so different, the results he has announced so varied, that it sometimes becomes difficult to realize that one subject has supplied each with his materials. At first the majority of controversialists were inclined to treat her leniently. Chalmers and Goodall, Benger, Keith, and, more recently, Hosack, Bell, Miss Strickland and Father Stevenson, are all either enthusiastic or sym- pathetic, while Sir Walter Scott, in fiction and history alike, treats her with unfailing sympathy and respect. Hume, Laing, and Froude are certainly pitilessly severe, while through such various mediums as the unqualified hostility of Hay-Fleming, the idealism of
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 27
Skelton, the cold and bitter condemnation of Hender- son, the cynicism of Andrew Lang, the inhuman severity, and I think I must say the almost personal animosity of Martin Hume — through all these we grope vainly for a final impression of Mary Stuart's mystifying personality.
In its later stages the controversy, most people must feel, has taken a sordid aspect, and the most romantic and saddest story in the world has been robbed of nearly all its poetry, and more than half its pathos. Mary meets with but little ceremony from her recent biographers. Perhaps the spirit of chivalry has fled from the world of literature as from the world of fact. Certainly, the old dignity and reverence — shall we say also, the old simplicity of purpose? — have passed away, and in the lowered quality of modern thought we must admit the pessimism of an age of small ideals.
It would seem that the last word about Mary Stuart is never to be written. After all, how can the contro- versy ever be ended? Three centuries and a half divide us from the times and actions over which we dispute, and the problem becomes, as Mr. Rait has remarked, mainly one of interpretation of character. It is for this reason that I ask my readers to turn from the many books about Mary to Mary's own book. It is not the woman or queen, but Mary Stuart the poetess and author whom we shall now interrogate, and I believe we shall apply a test that will bring us at least as near the truth as any of the pitiless criticism we have lately studied.
28 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Horace Walpole has allowed Mary a place in his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," where he deals with her in a rather summary and dis- courteous spirit. He was only aware of the exist- ence of her poems, of which one is printed in Parks's notes to the 1806 edition of his work. Although the most valuable of the manuscripts now in the safe cus- tody of the British Museum were available for refer- ence in Walpole's day,1 he does not appear to have consulted them, contenting himself with the less ac- curate method of quoting quotations. It is true that the State Papers — now accessible to every inquirer who finds his way to the grave and studious precincts of Chancery Lane — were at that time rather jealously guarded, and could only be consulted after the king's special permission had been obtained. We find that Burnet and Evelyn had access to them at various dates, and Walpole, of course, could have had no difficulty in securing this privilege, which, had he chosen to make use of it, would have enabled him to enrich his imperfect collection by at least a refer- ence to the longest of Mary's miscellaneous compo- sitions, the " Essay on Adversity," which is in the State Paper Office among the papers dealing with her period. Walpole has also, it would seem, over- looked Mary's Sonnet in the Cotton Collection. Un- less the sentence: "She is reported to have written * Poems on Various Occasions, in the Latin, Italian, French and Scottish languages/ " may be regarded as
1 For some remarks on the British Museum Library, see Appendix I.
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 29
an allusion to it. However, it is an ungrateful task to censure an author who assures us in his preface that " This work was calculated to amuse ; if it offends any man or is taken too seriously, the author will be con- cerned. But it will never make him so serious as to defend it."
I have done my best in this volume to unite all the various poems and prose compositions of Mary Stuart, so far as they have yet been recovered. All those con- tained in this collection have, with perhaps one ex- ception, been published before at various times, though not all have been translated into English, and it has never been attempted to make a single collection of her writings, prose and poetry, exclusive of her letters.1
1 Concerning Mary's claims to distinction as an author, opinions vary, and we do not find agreement even among her French critics. M. Teulet (" Lettres de Marie Stuart," p. 66) finds in her poems " une grande faiblesse " ; while M. Dargaud (not by any means a sentimental admirer of Mary's, for he is definitely against the theory of her innocence), has left the fol- lowing enthusiastic tribute, which is worth quoting in French, as it loses its force by translation : " . . . La gloire litttraire est un des prestiges de cette femme ttonnante, qui en eut tant tfautres. Tous ses prestiges lui ont survtcu, et lui survivront. Un nom fameux dans I'histoire est un astre dans le del: il ne pent s'e'teindre qu'avec le monde. II faut done le reconnoitre, un rayon de Sapho, de Vittoria Colonna, de Clothilde de Sur- ville'flotte sur la mtmoire de Marie Stuart" (Dargaud's " Vie de Marie Stuart," p. 132.) Sir John Skelton, on the other hand, says : " Neither her letters nor her poems are above mediocrity. The style is sufficiently graceful, but the sentiments are faded and commonplace;" while Mr. Henderson seems to anticipate as the final verdict, that of Sir James Melville, upon her playing of the virginals,— " reasonable, for a queen." See Appendix II.
30 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Her earliest compositions, if we set aside her childish letters, are the abstracts she wrote of her daily lessons for the benefit of her little fellow-students, the children of Catherine de' Medici, and particularly for the most dearly-loved among them, Elizabeth de Valois, after- wards Queen of Spain. These little essays have never (except in isolated cases) been translated into English before. They are filled with prim maxims and ad- monitions, but my readers will find in them many little personal touches illustrative of Mary's environment and habits of thought. M. Anatole de Montaiglon, who first edited them for the Warton Club in 1855, was of opinion that they could not be accepted as original productions. My reasons for taking an opposite view will be found fully stated in a note to a later page.
In her thirteenth year Mary made the Latin speech, referred to by Brantome, before the French king and his court, on the subject of the necessary attainments for women. This speech has passed unrecorded, or it would be a most valuable addition to this collection. Mary is known to have made a French translation of it, and it seems probable that she brought a copy of it, either in French or Latin, to Scotland, for, in a list of books belonging to Edinburgh Castle, which were delivered to James I at Stirling in March, 1578, occurs the following entry: "An Oration to the King of Franche, of the Queenis awin handwrite" If this is the speech in question, it is possible that the little manu- script volume, written apparently in her own hand, may yet be discovered in one of the public or private libraries of Scotland.
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 31
The various poems by Mary were, with one or two exceptions, published by Mr. Julian Sharman in 1873. An interesting but also incomplete review of her poems is that of M. Gustave Pawlowski, published in I883.1 In both cases the poems are printed in the original French. I give them here in English, having availed myself, where I could, of the translations that Miss Strickland had already made of some of them.
Perhaps I need hardly remind my readers that the " Adieu ^plays ant Pays de France" so long believed to be a genuine composition of Mary's, is now known to be the work of a certain M. Meusnier de Querlon, who, in 1765, inserted it as a genuine poem of Mary's in Monet's " Anthologie Franchise." At a later date M. Querlon admitted the fraud in a letter to Mercier, Abbd of St. Leger, but his confession is far less known than the poem itself, which one frequently sees quoted as a genuine original. The lines are touching and pathetic, and we should have liked to keep the pretty illusion that Mary had written them. The style and sentiment are just what we should expect from her. The composer has quite grasped her spirit, and the lines, though not hers, express well what Brantome has left us in prose of her actual farewell to the land of her youth.
Mary's address to her nobles has been printed in Small's "Queen Mary at Jedburgh" (1881), and is
1 In " Le Livre," 1883. All the poems enumerated by Pawl- owski and Sharman will be found in this volume, with the exception of the Casket Sonnets, concerning which see Appen- dix III.
32 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
also given in Father Stevenson's notes to Nau's " Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots." It was origin- ally written in old Scots, and seems to be the report of one who was present when the speech was made.
One composition of Mary's, written, presumably, about 1566-7, which would be of the greatest value to the editor of her works, seems to have completely dis- appeared. Bishop Montague, in his preface to the " Works of James I," published in 1616, says: " The Queene, his Majesty's mother, wrote a Booke of Verses in French, of the Institution of a Prince, all with her owne hand, wrought the cover of it with her needle, and [it] is now of his Majesty esteemed as a most pretious Jewell." l
Sir William Sanderson, writing in i656,2 alludes to this manuscript in almost the same words as Bishop Montague, adding that he had seen it himself. This is the last historical mention of the little book, which may possibly still be in existence, lying unnoticed, perhaps, in some neglected collection of books or antiquities. It would be natural to seek for it among the volumes of the Royal Library presented by George II to the British Museum in 1757, but it seems certain that it is not there. I conclude that Walpole is referring to it when he credits Mary with the authorship of " Royal Advice to her Son," though
1 It is worth noticing that the catalogue of Mary's private library at Edinburgh Castle mentions " The Gouvernament of Princes, writtin in Perchement," which may be the work in ques- tion. This catalogue was drawn up in 1578.
2 " Compleat History of Mary Queen of Scotland and her Son, etc.," p. 262.
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 33
he states that this was in "two books? a remark which may perhaps imply that he had seen it him- self, in which case we should draw the inference that it was extant in England in Georgian times.
There remained only the chance that this manu- script might have been overlooked among the Stuart relics in the possession of His Majesty the King. I have, however, been assured on the best authority that no trace of the little volume (which, supposing it to have preserved its original binding, could hardly have failed to attract attention) is to be found in the library at Windsor. I conclude, therefore, that we must give up all hope of ever perusing the most inter- esting, and probably the most beautiful of Mary's compositions. As to its fate, we may suppose that this treasured relic was carried over to France by the royal family at the time of their flight from England during the civil war, and in that case may have shared the misfortunes of the many priceless docu- ments which perished in the convulsions of the French Revolution. Though never published, it seems to have been extant in more than one copy, of which one is believed to have been in the possession of Sir William Drummond, of Hawthornden, mentioned in the catalogue of his library (which was presented by him to the University of Edinburgh in 1628) as " Marie Queen of Scots : Tetrasticha, ou Quatrains a son Fils." All trace of this copy — which, after all, may not be a copy, but a separate composition — has vanished. It does not occur in the more recent cata- logues of the Drummond Library, and if the book is
D
34 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
really there, it must be entered under some other name. If some inquirer, with unlimited time at his disposal, should one day have the industry and per- severance to go through every volume in the Drum- mond Collection, it is possible that this interesting work might yet be recovered. Till that deliverer shall arise, we must count another small mystery among the many that seem inseparable from the name of Mary Stuart.
The long " Essay on Adversity " has been pub- lished in the original French by Hosack.1 It is given in English, in a fragmentary and not absolutely accurate manner, by Miss Strickland in her " Lives of the Queens of Scotland." Mr. Samuel Cowan has pub- lished it more fully, but, as will be seen, my reading differs from his in several points. The essay will soon, I understand, appear in complete form in an official calendar,2 which I regret very much I have not had the advantage of studying before finishing my own translation. The original document, much erased and stained, is carefully preserved in the State Paper Office,3 and I hope and trust that I shall not be con- victed of doing any serious injustice to the author I have ventured to interpret.
The verses in the St. Petersburg missal are not very well known. They do not occur in Sharman's work. Prince Alexander Labanoff first published
1 " Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers," 2nd edition, vol. ii, Appendix.
2 Edited by W. K. Boyd, Esq.
3 " Mary Queen of Scots," vol. xi, 37.
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 35
them in his " Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," l and Mr. Cowan printed an English prose translation of them in 1901.
My idea has been to present Mary's writings to the reader in modern English. Where translation from the French was concerned this was not very difficult, but where my original has been in old Scots, I have felt some misgivings in tampering (however slightly) with the text. For this reason I have in every case indicated where the originals may be consulted by my readers, and, as it is especially difficult to judge the poems by translation, I have placed the originals of these in an appendix, where my readers will also find the long " Essay on Adversity " in French, copied word for word from the original manuscript in the State Paper Office.2
All literature, says Matthew Arnold, is a criticism
1 1844 edition, vol. vii, pp. 348-351.
a I should like, before concluding, to acknowledge the very kind assistance I have received in the course of compiling this little book. I have to thank Professor Hume-Brown and Father Pollen for kindly allowing me to consult them on various points of difficulty. I am also indebted to Mademoiselle Marie Du Toit for researches carried on in the libraries of Paris; to Mr. W. K. Boyd, for help at the Record Office ; to Mr. Arundell Esdaile, for help at the British Museum ; to Mr. Samuel Cowan, for most kindly procuring for me from St. Petersburg the valu- able photographs of Mary's autograph verses in her missal there preserved; to the authorities at the Record Office, at the Bodleian Library, and at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, for permission to have some of the documents under their charge photographed; and to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; to Messrs. William Blackwood and to Messrs. Elliot Stock, for permission to quote passages from various of their publications.
36 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
upon life. Much, indeed, if not all, of an author's aims, ideals and tendencies, may be learnt from his works, so that all writing may be considered to be, in a sense, autobiographical. Mary's fluent pen brings to our mind a very different image from those we have seen depicted in the pages of recent delineators. There is only the question as to whether she was sin- cere? Whether it is possible to think that she has imposed a deliberate and carefully-planned fraud upon us — that, not content with hoodwinking her contemporaries, every word she spoke or wrote was part of a consistent theatrical effort, with posterity as audience? The idea is too bizarre to be credible, and only rouses a kind of impatience in the mind.
It is impossible, after all, to deceive posterity — im- possible, one might almost say, to write a lie. There is always a weak spot somewhere, and modern critic- ism is so intimate a thing, that the hollowness of the pose is bound to make itself evident at one point or another. Only one who had suffered deeply could have written the "Essay on Adversity." It is the most touching document the Record Office contains. Impossible to write a lie ! — one at least, that is not immediately self-evident, and that does not brand its inventor for ever as a perjured witness in the courts of criticism. For he who aspires to wield the pen of a ready writer must be content to renounce all privacy ; he can never hope to keep his counsel. He may divert himself by recording a thousand misstatements and misrepresentations. But all the time, following some mysterious law, he is writing himself into his
QUEEN MARY'S WORKS 37
manuscript with unerring accuracy. No disguise will avail him, for literature is the Palace of Truth; his character, his ambitions, his ideals, lie disclosed before us whether he wills it or not, and his very per- sonality is public property.
We may call to mind plenty of false writing to justify such a generalization. Have my readers ever studied the Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, young- est daughter of Catherine de' Medici? Had they not, in reading, the sensation of contact with something treacherous and dishonest? Surely every other sen- tence— always with a recurrent note of self-praise — rings false? And the Memoirs of Josephine de Beau- harnais! — how, as we read them, attracted by a sym- pathy that seeks to become admiration, we have the irresistible and unpleasant conviction that she is weaving a tissue of falsehood ! Surely these expres- sions of ardent devotion to Napoleon were written by one who never loved him? Surely Josephine, if she is ever candid, is so only where she writes of her earlier life and of the Terror, where she speaks as a great lady of the ancien regime? Horace Walpole, too, in a less culpable manner, seems to have thrown a deliberately artificial image of himself upon his literary canvas. But he was a past master in the art. He never for a moment forgot his audience — that posterity which perpetually delights in his fascinating style, and yet can never quite trust him. The conception is almost perfect, the work of art almost without a flaw. We can scarcely detect an inconsistency in the personality his writings seem to reveal. And yet? he may have
38 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
posed to us, but has he quite imposed upon us? Behind all this brilliant sarcasm, this adroit and facile cynic- ism, is there not something in the real Walpole that jars — something very small, very prejudiced, and (shall we add) very unhappy?
As to whether the sentiments expressed by Mary Stuart are genuine, each reader, after studying the question, must decide for himself. I shall have done my part in bringing the evidence before him, and must leave Mary's little book to fight its own way, and enable her to take the place I have always felt she deserves as a writer of much natural eloquence and grace. I hope very much that all her writings prose and poetry, may one day appear, in modern- ized form, in the language in which most of them were originally composed, as in some ways they are more likely to find appreciation with a French than with an English public. I believe that this has never yet been attempted, but I am in hopes that among our chivalrous neighbours across the Channel there may be found some friend of Mary Stuart willing to give her a hearing in the sympathetic land of her youth.
POEMS AND ESSAYS
BY
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
(1542 TO 1587)
POEMS AND ESSAYS BY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
(1542x01587)
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554*
I
SINCE the muses (like all other things) have their origin in God, it is reasonable that in order to do well the work I am beginning, my opening effort should be submitted to His guidance, and that with
1 From de Montaiglon's " Latin Themes of Mary Queen of Scots," published for the Warton Club in 1855. These Essays or Exercises were originally inscribed in a small red-leather volume, edged with gilt tooling and stamped with the royal arms of France, which is now carefully preserved in the " Salle de la Grand Reserve," at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. They are written in French and Latin, the Latin only being in Mary's hand. M. de Montaiglon, in editing them, writes as follows : u It is evident that the book was blank when given to Mary, who was to transcribe her themes on the recto of each leaf, but who sometimes was so inattentive as to write on the verso. When the book was nearly full, the French themes were collected and written in their fit places by one hand, and perhaps at once ; for the handwriting is identical in all places, and it is evidently that of a manual copyist ; and as some themes were lost, the leaf waiting them was left blank. . . . Some slight differences furnish also another proof that this French is in fact the original theme, and not a version from the Latin." If de Montaiglon's
42 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
all the power of my understanding I should implore His help and His holy grace. [The French version adds: At Rheims.]
theory is correct, the themes, of course, lose much of their inter- est, and must be regarded simply as the compositions of Mary's tutor. But there are one or two points worth considering before we definitely accept this conclusion. Two of the themes (Nos. XLI and XLIV) are certainly only dictations, being addressed, as will be observed, to Mary by her preceptor, her part being simply to write them out. I am inclined to think, however, that this need not oblige us to decide too hastily against the origin- ality of all the rest. The second of the two dictations (if the dates are correct) was written on the same day that Mary also wrote her usual exercise, and therefore it is possible that the dictation was a supplement, and not part of the usual school- room routine.
M. de Montaiglon's opinion that the Latin is the translation and not the original is justified by a careful comparison of the two versions, and he seems equally correct in his contention that the French version was copied into the little book after the Latin had been written there. The question, then, concerns the authorship of the original French drafts, and these, M. de Montaiglon assumes, would naturally be the work of Mary's tutor. On consideration, however, I am not at all sure that we are obliged to grant him this premiss. There are touches so personal in these little exercises, expressions so characteristic that it is difficult to suppose that they are not the spontaneous expression of her childish feelings — little phrases of affection that seem too full of individuality to have been borrowed from another. No doubt the allusions to the classics contained in almost all the exercises, and the tone of moralizing that per- vades them, were borrowed from her daily lessons, but the arrangement, the wording, the assimilation, seem to me to be her own.
Ten years later, we find Mary in the habit of preparing her public speeches in French and then translating them. Randolph writes from Edinburgh in 1563: "she made an oration unto her
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 43
II
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth? her sister, Greeting.
IT is not enough, my beloved sister, that at the com- mencement of your studies you should invoke the help of God. For He wishes, besides, that you should work with all the force you possess. For, my dearest friend and sister,2 the ancients have said that the Gods do not give their blessings to idle folk, but sell them for labour.
Farewell, and love me as much as I love you !
Ill
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her dearest sister, Greeting.
I WROTE for you yesterday, my beloved sister, that virtue comes from the study of letters. And, more- people, which herewith I send your Honour, as she wrote it in French, but pronounced it in English."
1 This was Madame Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Henri
II and Catherine dej Medici. She afterwards married Philip II of Spain. A very tender friendship united Mary Stuart and Elizabeth de Valois, though they parted in their teens never to meet again. In a letter written to Elizabeth in later years, from one of her English prisons, Mary writes : " I do not know how to describe to you the pleasure which your kind and comforting letters have given me at a time so unfortunate for me ; they seem sent from God for my consolation in the midst of all the troubles and adversities that surround me ! I see well how much I am bound to bless God for our having been (fortunately for me) brought up together, which is the cause of our indissoluble friendship."
2 Arnica summa mea et soror.
44 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
over, learning is more necessary to us princes than to private persons. For, just as a prince excels his sub- jects in riches, power, authority, and the right to command, so he ought above all to be the foremost in prudence, counsel, benevolence, grace, and every kind of virtue. Thus, the Egyptians painted an eye in the sceptre of kings, saying that no virtue is more suited to a prince than prudence. [The French version adds: At Rheims.]
IV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister p, Greeting*
SINCE, then, a prince must excel his subjects, not in voluptuousness or pleasure, but in sense, temperance, and prudence — and since his duty and office is to administer the benefits of the commonwealth to his subjects — it is needful, my best-loved sister, that we should take pains to be very wise, and that we should not let a single day pass without learning some new thing. As an example, Apelles,1 the painter, used such diligence in his art, that he never allowed a day to pass without employing his pencil to draw a line.
Farewell, and love me always as you are wont to do!
1 Apelles, a celebrated painter of antiquity, flourished in Greece about 325 B.C.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 45
V
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, Greeting.
ONE cannot marvel sufficiently at the fact that with regard to other peoples' failings we are more sharp- sighted than Argus, who had a hundred eyes, while for seeing and correcting our own we are as blind as the mole. It is this trait which is sneered at by ^Esop, who says that in the satchel we carry in front we put the vices of others, and in that which hangs behind we place our own. Let us not act thus, my beloved sister, for he who wishes to speak against others should himself be faultless. Farewell! [The French adds: At Compienne, 26th July.]
VI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
I READ, yesterday, one of Msop's Fables which is as profitable as it is agreeable. During the winter the ant was engaged in making a good meal of the grain which he had collected in the summer, when the grasshopper came to him, very hungry, and begged for something to eat. But the ant said, " What were you doing in the summer?" " Singing," was the an- swer. " If you sang in the summer, you may dance now in the winter," answered the ant. The fable sig- nifies, dearest sister, that while we are young we should take pains [the Latin ends abruptly here; the
46 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
French continues :] to study learning and virtue, to guide us in later years.
Farewell, and love me as much as you can — you may do so as much as you please !
VII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
I AM told by our teacher, my beloved sister, that you are studying very diligently just now, which pleases me very much, and I beg you to continue to do so, as the greatest good fortune you can ever have. For that which nature gives us lasts only a short time, and will be required of us in our old age, or even sooner. That which fortune gives us, she also will take away. But virtue (which results from the study of good literature) gives us that which is immortal, and we may retain it for ever.
Farewell! [The French adds : At Compienne, 25th July.]
VIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her dearest sister, Greeting.
CATO said, my sister, that the nature of each one of us resembles iron : the more it is used the better is its condition. But when it is left idle it becomes rusty. This truth is well illustrated by Cicero, in his book on Illustrious Orators, where he tells us that he
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 47
was accustomed to employ his time every day either in writing something new or in declaiming in Greek or in Latin. Moreover, believe me, my sister, idleness is the mother of every vice. Thus we ought at all times to exercise our intellect in study or in virtue, for to employ it in vain or sinful matters is not to exercise but to corrupt it.
Farewell! {The French adds : At Compienne, 28th July.]
IX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth and Claude, her sisters, Greeting.
IT was not without cause, my beloved sisters, that the Queen l ordered us yesterday to do whatever our teachers may require of us. For Cicero says in the beginning of the second book of Laws that he who commands well has once obeyed, and that he who obeys humbly is worthy of one day commanding. Plutarch, an author worthy of our confidence, has said that virtue is learned through precepts just as well as art, and employs this argument : men learn to sing, to dance, to read, to till the earth, to ride, to wear shoes, to clothe themselves, and to cook. And are we to suppose that to conquer one's own inclina- tions, to govern a commonwealth (a thing difficult beyond all others), to command an army, and to lead a virtuous life — are we to suppose, I say, that all this will come to us by chance? Do not believe it, but let
1 Catherine de' Medici.
48 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
us learn to obey now, in order that we may under- stand how to command when we are of an age to do so.
Farewell! 3rd August. [The French is dated: 29th July.]
Mary Queen of Scots to Claud Quarlocoio, her fellow- pupil^ Greeting?
Do not glorify yourself on account of any virtue, wisdom or learning that you may happen to possess, but rather give the glory of it to God, who alone is the cause of this pre-eminence. Show scorn to no man, but reflect that what may happen to one may also befall another. And, as I have already told you return thanks to the all-powerful God for having shielded you from so sad a fate, and pray that such misfortunes mey not come upon you. Assist also those who are afflicted if you can. For if you are merciful to men, you will obtain the mercy of God :
1 Concerning the mysterious heading of this exercise, de Montaiglon says : " By the direction of the tenth letter, we learn the name of another fellow-student of Mary, whose presence is even more curious, from the circumstance that this other fellow-student is not a girl but a boy. Unhappily the Latin form involves the name in a doubt, only to be removed by chance. I confess I cannot guess what may be in French the name Quarlocoious ; is it not possible he was perhaps the son of some great Scotch nobleman who came into France with his young queen?"
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 49
to whom I pray that He will favour all your enter- prises.
Farewell! \The French is dated: The first day of August.]
XI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth and Claude, her sisters. Greeting.
THE best inheritance that can be bequeathed to the children of virtuous parents is the understanding of virtue and the knowledge of various arts and sciences, which things, according to the saying of Cicero, are of more value than any patrimony. For which reason, I cannot sufficiently commend our King and Queen J for the care they take that in our youth our minds should be imbued with good maxims and studies — following the opinion of various wise men who have more esteemed the value of a good education than the circumstance of noble birth. Then, my sisters, let us, as far as we are able, fulfil our duty!
Farewell! \The French adds: At Compienne, 7th August]
XII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
BECAUSE the truest friendship, which leads me to love you better than myself, demands that all the
1 Henri II and Catherine de' Medici. E
50 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
blessings I may ever possess shall be common be- tween us, my sister, I gladly make you participator in a beautiful simile I read in Plutarch yesterday. In the same way, he says, that he who poisons a public fountain from which everybody drinks, is worthy of the worst torture that can be inflicted upon him, so is he contemptible and wicked who corrupts the spirit of a prince and fails to correct his evil tendencies, which will conduce to the hurt of so many people. Thus, my sister, we must obey those who reprove us. [The French adds: At Compienne, 8th August]
XIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
IT is with the object of inducing you to read Plutarch, my dearest friend and sister, that I so often refer to him in my letters. For he is a philosopher worthy of the study of a prince. But see what he adds to the passage I quoted for you yesterday: If, he says, he who debases and counterfeits the coin of a prince is punished, how much more worthy of condemnation is he who corrupts that prince's understanding! For such as are the princes in the commonwealth, says Plato, so also the citizens are wont to be. And he considered those states very happy which were gov- erned by princes as mild as they were wise.
Farewell! [The French adds: From Compienne 9th August.]
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EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 51
XIV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister. Greeting.
THE true majesty of a prince consists neither in dig- nities, gold, purple, precious stones, nor in any other of the pomps of fortune: but in prudence, virtue, wisdom, and knowledge. And just as the prince will wish to differ from his subjects in his habits and his fashion of living, so also he should be elevated above them in being superior to the prejudices of the vulgar.
Farewell, and love me as much as you can. [The French adds: loth August]
XV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
As it is always my custom to share with you the best of my lessons, I wish to relate to you what I was learning the day before yesterday, namely, that a prince should never boast of his armorial bearings or of the other insignia of nobility which he inherits from his parents : but rather should follow and applaud their virtue and their wise conduct. For the true nobility is virtue; and thus a prince should first be instructed in science and discipline, and, secondly, he should bear the escutcheons and arms of his pre- decessors— with which last, my sister, we are suffici- ently dowered.
Farewell! \The French adds: From Compienne, 1 3th August]
52 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
XVI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
I WAS reading to-day, my sister, that Plato called all princes " guards of the commonwealth," and said that they ought to be to their countries what the sheep- dog is to the flock, for if the sheep-dog be trans- formed into a wolf, what hope is there for the sheep? Therefore he calls a cruel and tyrannical prince a lion. St. Paul, speaking of Nero, applied the same term to him : "I am," said he, " delivered from the mouth of the lion."1 The wise King Solomon has similarly depicted the tyrannical prince, saying: "a wicked prince is to his unfortunate people a roaring lion and a hungry bear."2 Let us, therefore, now study virtue, my sister, which will make us faithful watch-dogs to our flocks, and not wolves, nor bears, nor lions.
My tutor has told me that you are not feeling well; I shall go to visit you presently — in the mean- time, try to recover. \The French adds: I4th August.]
XVII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
IF in our youth we learn virtue, as I told you yester- day, the people will never call us wolves, nor bears,
1 2 Timothy, iv, 17. 2 Proverbs, xxviii, 15.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 53
nor lions, but will honour us and love us as children are accustomed to love their fathers and mothers. The prerogative of a good prince is to injure no one, but to do good to all. And the spirit of tyranny should be far from the mind of the prince — nor should he use such phrases as: "I wish it to be thus! I command it so! and on every consideration, let my will be done! " For it is a true saying (and is already a proverb), that those who fear, hate.
Farewell, my dearest sister. {The French adds: This 1 7th August, at Compienne.]
XVIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Calvin, Greeting?
SOCRATES said that there are two ways, either of which the spirit can take when it has quitted the body. For those who have kept themselves chaste and upright, and who have, in their mortal bodies, imi- tated the lives of the gods, return easily to them ; while those who have soiled themselves with vices, find themselves upon a circuitous route, far from the presence of the gods. But the spirits of those who have made themselves almost (though not altogether)
1 It is curious to find Mary addressing one of her themes to Calvin. De Montaiglon seems to think that the letter — or rather, its duplicate— may have been actually sent to the stern reformer at Geneva. This, however, scarcely seems very probable. Most likely Father Stevenson is right in supposing it to be nothing more than " an exercise in the form of an epistle." (Stevenson's "Mary Stuart. The first eighteen Years of her Life," p. 136.)
54 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
the servants of voluptuousness, are condemned to wander long about the earth before they return to heaven.1 You see then that Socrates, Plato, and several other pagan philosophers, have recognized the existence of purgatory, which you, inheritor of the law of grace, do miserably and to your ruin, deny. May Christ, the Son of God, recall you, Calvin, and in the meantime study what is right and good. From Compienne, i8th August.
XIX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister \ Greeting.
You were surprised, my sister, that I quitted the apartment of the Queen yesterday to go into my study, seeing that it was Sunday. Believe me, it was because during the last two days I have been engaged in reading a Colloquy of Erasmus which he calls " Diluculum " — so beautiful, so inspiriting, and so use- ful, that nothing could be more so. Ah me, how he belabours those who sleep too long, and think it so small a matter to waste time, which is the most pre- cious thing in the world. Besides this, his Latin is so easy and so elegant, that it is impossible for anything to be more polished. I will explain it to you to-day, if I have leisure.
Farewell! This 2Oth August.
1 Mary is quoting Plato's " Phaedo," in which Socrates is made to discourse upon the probable survival of the soul after death, and the presumed rewards and punishments of a future life.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 55
XX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister p, Greeting.
PLUTARCH says that anger and hatred are more dan- gerous in a prince than in a private person, inasmuch as the prince has the power of offending many, which the other has not. And for this reason we have the right to require principle and prudence in a prince. For, as said Bias, one of the seven sages of Greece, the province of a wise man (no matter who may be offended thereby) is to do ill to no one, even when he has the power. And in this he will follow the magnanimity of God, who does nothing so often or so willingly as to pardon.
Farewell! \The French adds: At Compienne, 23rd August]
XXI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister^ Greeting.
I BELIEVE, my sweet sister, that the saying of Mag- dalia which we read in Erasmus yesterday, is very true — namely, that no one can live peacefully if he does not live well. Bias also pronounced the greatest happiness to lie in elevation of character, and the greatest misery in vice and in the malice of men. For, as Cicero says in his book on Old Age, the memory of virtuous acts is very pleasant, and, on the contrary, as the sage declares in his Proverbs, fear
56 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
always rests with those who do wrong.1 And Plautus says that nothing is so miserable as the soul that feels itself guilty of some crime. For this reason, my sister, let us above all things study virtue. [The French adds: 24th August.]
XXII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister > Greeting.
WHEN last night my tutor begged you to reprove your sister because she wished to drink before going to bed, you refused to do so, and protested that you yourself were thirsty. See, then, my sister, what we should be, who are examples to the people! How shall we dare to reprove others unless we are our- selves without reproach? A good prince should so live that great and small may take example by his virtues. He should so act in his own home that he can be reproved by no one; while in his outward life he should do nothing and think of nothing except the public good. And he should be very careful, in conversation, to encourage only what is good. — And all this he cannot do without being properly instructed. Let us, then, my sister, devote ourselves earnestly to the study of letters, and good will result from it both to ourselves and to our subjects.
Farewell! [The French adds: At Compienne, 25th August, 1554.]
1 Proverbs, xxviii, I.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 57
XXIII
Mary Queen of Scots to hey Uncle of Lorraine, Greeting?
CARNEADES has said, my honoured uncle, that the children of kings learn nothing well except to ride a horse — because, in all other branches of study, people flatter them. But the horse, as he does not under- stand whether he is carrying on his back a poor or a rich man, a prince or a private person, throws to the ground any one who rides badly. And we see this illustrated in other ways. For not only are princes flattered by nurses, servants, and companions, but even their governors and tutors think less of improv- ing the character of the prince than of enriching themselves. O miserable system! and cause of so much suffering to poor subjects, through the princes being badly brought up. — It is this that makes me beg you, my uncle, always to recommend my inex- perience to the guidance of those who love virtue better than riches.
Farewell! [The French adds: 26th August]
1 Mary is addressing her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who seems to have superintended her studies, household, and general well-being. Several of his letters, addressed to Mary of Guise, and dating from this period, containing reports as to Mary's progress, are preserved among the Balcarres papers in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
58 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
XXIV
Mary Queen of Scots to her Uncle of Lorraine, Greeting.
MANY people in these days fall into error over the Holy Scriptures, my uncle, because they do not ap- proach them in a pure and simple spirit. For God does not confide His secrets except to those who are innocent and good. And it is not an easy matter to everybody to realize what God is — as you know far better than I do. I have read that Simonides,1 ques- tioned by Hiero as to what God was, and what he himself was, asked for a day in which to prepare his answer. On the morrow, his reply being called for, he asked for another two days. But when it was found that he always doubled the time, Hiero asked him why he did so, and he replied: "Because the more I consider, the more difficult and obscure the matter appears to me to be."
Farewell! 3rd September. [The French is dated: 29th August]
XXV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister > Greeting.
I HAVE been told, my sister, that at your lesson yes- terday you allowed yourself to be self-opinionated.
1 Simonides, a Greek lyric poet (B.C. 556-468), spent the last ten years of his life at the court of Hiero, Tyrant of Syra- cuse. Mary quotes an anecdote related in Cicero's " De Natura Deorum."
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 59
You promised not to be so any more: I beg you to rid yourself of this habit, and to remember that when a prince takes a book into his hands he must do so, not only for his own amusement, but in order that he may improve himself by the lesson. And the greatest wisdom is to wish that what is right should be done. If you have the will, certainly you have the power to profit, and, in order that you may soon have a spirit worthy of a prince, reflect that those who reprove and admonish you freely are those who love you best. For this reason, accustom yourself to such persons, and love them also.
Farewell! [The French adds: At Villers-Cotterets. 8th September.]
XXVI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister ', Greeting.
IN order that you may know how to confute those fine chatterers who said yesterday that the business of women is to know nothing, I should like to tell you, my sister, that a woman of your name was once so learned that she might well have answered them had she been present. I mean Elizabeth, a German abbess,1 who wrote many beautiful prayers for the sisters of her convent, and a work on the paths by which one reaches God. Themistoclea, the sister of Pythagoras, was so learned that on many occasions
1 St. Elizabeth, daughter of Andreas II of Hungary. (1207- 1231.)
60 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
he made use of her opinions. In order that you may have the means to answer these gentlemen I shall name to you a great many other instances.
Farewell, my sister, and love her who loves you very much! Farewell, once more. loth September. [The French adds: At Villers-Cotterets.]
XXVII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
You may also tell these vain chatterers that there have been three Corinnes, all very learned, of whom she who belonged to Thebes wrote five books of epigrams, and five times vanquished Pindar, the prince of lyric poets. Erinna * composed a poem of three hundred verses in the Doric language, besides many other epigrams; and it is said that her verses re- sembled in dignity those of Homer. She died at the age of nineteen. Sappho was admirable in every variety of verse. Polla, the wife of Lucan,2 was, it is said, so learned that she helped her husband to cor- rect the first three books of the " Pharsalia." Aspasia taught rhetoric, and was the instructress and finally the wife of Pericles. I shall name to you several others to-morrow.
Farewell! nth September.
1 A Greek poetess, and friend of Sappho. (B.C. 600.)
2 The first century, A.D.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 61
XXVIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister •, Greeting.
CLEOBULINA, the daughter of Cleobulinus (who was one of the seven wise men of Greece), wrote many fine enigmas in hexameters. Cornificia, sister to Cornificius, the poet, composed some very elegant epigrams. Cornelia,1 the wife of Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, has left some letters written in Latin, and it was from her that her children derived their eloquence. The daughter of Laelius recalled in her speeches the brilliance of her father. And the prayer of Hortensia, daughter of Hortensius, which she delivered before the triumvirs, proves that she was very eloquent. Remember carefully all those I name to you, so that you may be able to reply to people who despise our sex, and who say that it is not a woman's province to know Latin. Farewell! I2th September.
XXIX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister > Greeting.
You may tell them further, my sister, that Anastasia, the disciple of Chrysogonus the martyr, was very learned and pious. She was burnt because she minis- tered to the saints. Damophila, a Greek woman, sang the praises of Diana, and wrote several love-poems.
About the third century, A.D.
62 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Hypatia,1 wife of the philosopher Isidorus, wrote about astronomy, and taught various philosophies in Alexandria with so much dexterity and spirit that disciples flocked to her from all quarters. Leontia, a Greek maiden, progressed so far in the study of philosophy that she was able, amid great applause, to write against Theophrastus, a very celebrated philo- sopher. Praxilla greatly excelled in every poetic art. As you are ill, I will not make my letter any longer. To-morrow I shall resume my theme. Fare- well! 1 3th September.
XXX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
PHEMONOE is numbered among these wise and learned women. Sosipatra was a prophetess, and was filled with such wisdom that people supposed her to have been educated by the gods. Theano was a woman who excelled in lyric verses. Another of the same name was a Pythagorean, and wrote some philosophical commentaries on virtue, and also various poems and apophlegms. Zenobia,2 Queen of Palmyra, was learned in the Greek and Egyptian languages, and not ignorant in Latin. She instructed two of her children in the study of letters, and often composed orations which she recited at the head of her armies. Alpaides, a maiden, was so much a friend
1 About the fourth century, A.D.
2 Third century, A.D.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 63
to religion, that she deserved to receive from heaven grace to understand the sense of the Bible and the holy writings. To-day is the festival of the Holy Cross, on which, for our salvation, Jesus Christ the Eternal Son of God was stretched.
I am going into the park to refresh my spirit a little, which is the reason that I conclude my letter here. Farewell! I4th September.
XXXI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
DEBORAH,1 a woman of the line of Ephraim, was most learned, and foretold future events. Lastemia and Axiothea (as Plutarch witnesses), were disciples of Plato, and in order to have greater facilities for conversing on various subjects with learned persons, they attended the schools arrayed in men's costumes. Michale very learnedly taught at Thessaly the remedy for love. Diotima and Aspasia so perfected themselves in philosophy that one of them, namely, Diotima, was recognized by Socrates,i the prince of philosophers, as his instructress; while he attended the lectures of the other, as Plato has recorded in his writings. Lactantius says that Themista excelled all others in philosophy.
The King has given me permission to receive a fallow-deer in the park, and I am to hunt there with Madame de Castro,2 so that I have not leisure to
1 Judges, iv.
2 The Duchesse de Castro, a natural daughter of Henri II,
64 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
write you a longer letter. Farewell ! [ The French adds: 1 5th September.]
XXXII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
ARETE became so learned that after the death of her father, Aristippus,1 she carried on his school of philo- sophy, and had various disciples. Dama, the daughter of Pythagoras,2 had a soul so wrapped in philosophy, that she could explain the most difficult passages in her father's teaching. Thargelia also excelled in philosophy. Muscam was a lyric poetess, and wrote various epigrams. Cariscena composed many very elegant verses.
I will not make my letter any longer, my sweetest sister, because you are not yet sufficiently recovered. That I did not come to visit you yesterday was the fault of the doctor, who would not allow it on account of your having taken medicine.
Farewell! \The French adds : 1 8th September.]
XXXIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
MOERO is also praised for a hymn she composed in honour of Neptune. Agallis of Corsica excelled in
1 Founder of the Cyrenaic or Hedonistic philosophy, and a pupil of Socrates. (Fifth and fourth centuries, B.C.)
2 Sixth century, B.C.
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P3 'bo
8 I
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 65
the art of grammar, and Telesilla in poetry; she is greatly praised by Pausanias,1 who erected a statue to her in the Island of Argos, in front of the Temple of Venus. Hipparchia, a Greek woman, has also won- derfully excelled in the discipline of philosophy.
I will not enumerate any more for you at present, because I am obliged to go and see the King, who takes his medicine in the evening. I had no leisure to visit you yesterday; I beg you, my sister, to forgive me. Farewell! [The French adds : 2Oth September.]
XXXIV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
CASSANDRA, the daughter of Priam, was a prophetess, and very accomplished in learning; her enemies honoured her with a temple in Lacedaemonia. Statius Papinius had a wife named Claudia, of a very lofty spirit and endowed with great wisdom. Eudoxia, wife of the younger Theodosius a (besides great beauty and a singular modesty), so excelled in learning that she gave to the world a beautiful book. Istrina, Queen of the Scythians, as Herodotus relates, instructed her son Sylus in the Greek language.
This will be enough for the present. One should read what Philodoxus asks of Simbulus in Erasmus. Farewell! 22nd September.
1 A Greek geographer and historian, who flourished in the second century, A.D.
* The Emperor Theodosius II. (401-450, A.D.)
F
66 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
XXXV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister > Greeting.
POLITIAN greatly praises Cassandra Fidelis, a woman of Venice, whom he describes as handling books instead of wool, the pen instead of the spindle, and the stylus instead of the needle. He speaks of her thus, at the commencement of one of his letters : " O maiden, glory of Italy! What honour can I pay you, who have not disdained to honour me with your letters?" Proba Valeria, a little Roman girl who greatly excelled in Greek and also in Latin, wrote a very fine book on the subject of the works of Jesus Christ, and on His death.
The Queen has forbidden me to go and see you, my sister, because she thinks you are suffering from the measles, for which I am very sorry, and I beg you to send me word how you are progressing. Farewell ! [The French adds: 23rd September.]
XXXVI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister^ Greeting.
BAPTISTA, the eldest daughter of Prince Malatesta, often gained great credit in disputing with the most learned men, and wrote books on the frailty of human nature and on true religion. Isota Navarola, a woman of Verona, was a learned professor of philosophy, and on several occasions wrote letters to Popes Nicholas V
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 67
and Pius II. She also wrote a dialogue in which she discussed the question as to which committed the greater sin, Adam or Eve: to which excellence in literature she added the vow of perpetual celibacy.
Farewell, my dearest friend and sister. At Paris,1 1 2th October, 1554.
XXXVII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister ; Greeting.
MINERVA, the eldest daughter of Jupiter, is not in- cluded among the gods for any other reason than that she was learned in all kinds of arts, of which she was the inventor. Manto, who gave to Mantua its name, was a celebrated prophetess. Nicostrata urgently maintained that Greek letters . . . [The exercise breaks off abruptly here, and there is no French version to enable us to complete it^\
XXXVIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
CATHERINE,2 daughter of the King of Alexandria, was so well read in religious writings that, partly by her own energy and partly through divine inspiration, she vanquished several learned men summoned by her father to confirm her in idolatry and to persuade
1 Mary uses the old Latin name for Paris — " Lutetia."
2 St. Catherine of Alexandria, who suffered martyrdom in 307 A.D.
68 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
her to abandon the worship of one God. Fabiola, a Roman woman, accepted the Holy Scriptures with such enthusiasm and so often read the prophecies, gospels and other good lessons, that she greatly augmented the love of religion. St. Jerome often wrote to Marcella, a Roman woman, because she so thoroughly understood the Holy Scriptures, and dedi- cated to her the book he wrote upon the Contempt of the World, on our Faith, on the doctrine of the heretics, on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and many other subjects.
I must now go to vespers with the Queen, which obliges me to end my letter here. Paris, 28th October. Farewell !
XXXIX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
EUSTOCHIUM, daughter of Paula, a Roman woman, excelled in the study of Hebrew, Greek and Latin : so much so, that in her day she was called the New Wonder of the World. She devoted herself with all her heart to the study of the Holy Scriptures, on which account St. Jerome loved and praised her warmly. Genebria, a woman of Verona, who lived during the time of Pope Pius II, earned for herself an immortal name by her great learning. She wrote letters full of wisdom.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 69
XL
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
CONSTANTIA, the wife of Alexander Sforza, is notable among women who have been learned in doctrine. From her childhood she studied very diligently, so that in a short time she was able without preparation to discourse eloquently. She always had in her hands the works of St. Jerome, of St. Ambrose, of St. Gregory, of Cicero and of Lactantius. She wrote some beauti- ful poems, and it was said of her that she learnt with- out a master. She had a daughter named Baptista, who was so wise that she astounded the most learned men with her eloquence.
Remember what I have told you of all these women, my sister, and, from their example, let us set ourselves to study literature, which will make us, as it has them, immortal. Farewell!
XLI
The Preceptor to the Queen, his pupil, Greeting.
You must not be annoyed, madam, if you are reproved every time that you do wrong, for in all institutions, especially in that of a prince, diligence must be used that the severity of the instructor shall correct and amend the faults of the student. And do not love the less those who admonish you ; but, on the contrary, esteem faithful not those who praise all that you say
70 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
or do, but those who, when you do wrong, reprove you sternly. These latter, madam, are the true friend of the prince. From our library at St. Germain, Nov- ember 23rd.1
XLII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ Greeting.
WE must not lose courage, my sister, if virtue and wisdom take a long time to learn, for all things that are quickly acquired perish in a short time. Agar- tharcus, a painter, prided himself upon his quick work while Zeuxis took a long time over his pictures. But Zeuxis replied : " I paint slowly, because my pictures are to last for ever." Things born early perish sud- denly, and those which are slowly elaborated endure for a long age. The beet grows quickly and the box- tree slowly. Consider, my sister, which of the two lasts the longer! Take courage then, my only joy, virtue will remain with us eternally.
At St. Germain, 24th November, 1554. Farewell!
XLIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister > Greeting.
AGESILAUS, on being asked by what means honour- able fame could be gained, replied : " Speak that which is good, and do that which is honourable."
1 See note, pp. 41-42.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 71
Socrates replied to the same question : " Study to be what you wish to appear.' For glory that is simulated for effect is not true glory, and will not last. Let us be careful then, my sister, neither in our play nor in our work to do anything but what is right. Farewell. 27th November.
XLIV
The Preceptor to Mary.
I WAS reading in the evening, a short time before going to bed, a sentence in Antalcidus which deserves to be learnt by everyone, and more especially by a prince. On being asked how it is possible to please men, he replied : " Speak to them graciously and give them that which will be useful to them." He teaches you, my dear ladies, to use gentleness in your con- versation and to be liberal, giving to others that which will be profitable to them. 27th November.
XLV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, Greeting.
ONCE when Dionisius entered his son's room, he observed a large heap of gold and silver vases, and cried : " Have you then no royal spirit, that you have not made friends to yourself with these pots that I have given you? " Meaning that unless the affections of the citizens are won, a kingdom cannot be gained or established. And nothing wins friendship and
72 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
affection more readily than generosity. But the young man, ignorant of these things, believed that greater happiness lay in owning riches than in possessing friends.
Let us abhor avarice, my sister, for it is a sentiment unworthy of the spirit of a prince. Farewell! 28th October.
XLVI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister •, Greeting.
ARISTODEMUS who, though only the son of a cook, was one of the greatest friends of Antigonus, King of Macedon,1 tried to persuade him to curtail his ex- penditure and liberality. " Your words, Aristodemus," was the reply, "smack of the sauce," meaning that avarice appertained to a cook, and not to a king, and that by such advice he rather betrayed from what father he was born than of whom he was the friend. Antigonus thus demonstrated what was also said by Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, namely, that it is more worthy of a prince to augment the honours and riches of those whom he commands, than to diminish them. Farewell! 4th December. At St. Germain.
XLVI I
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
THE following story, my sister, is not less filled with dignity and usefulness than that which I related to you
1 Third century, B.C.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 73
yesterday. Perillus, one of the friends of Alexander, asked him for a dowry for his daughter. The king commanded that he should receive fifty talents. Perillus replies that ten would be sufficient. " It is sufficient to you," said Alexander, "to receive that amount, but to me it is not sufficient to give it." O liberality worthy of a great prince !
Farewell, my beloved sister. I will not write you a longer letter, as I am suffering from tooth-ache. At St. Germain, 3rd (5th ?) December.
XLVIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
I THINK the generosity of Alexander so wonderful, that I cannot restrain myself from speaking of it. When once Xenocrates, a philosopher, refused fifty talents which he had sent him as a gift, — saying that he had no use for such a sum, — Alexander asked him whether he had no other friends who were in greater need? "Scarcely," said the king, "have all the riches of Darius sufficed me for my friends." At St. Germain. December.
XLIX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister. Greeting.
I WILL relate to you, my sister, a generous act that surpasses all the rest. Anaxarchus, a philosopher,
74 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
came to King Alexander, knowing him to be generous and to be a lover of literature, and asked him for money to build a college. The king commanded his treasurer to give the philosopher whatever he required. The treasurer, astounded at the amount asked for by the philosopher, informed the king that he had de-^ manded a hundred talents. " He does well," was the reply, "knowing that Alexander both can and will give as much." When I consider the honour gained by this king through his generosity, I am distressed that I have not greater means to prove my good in- tentions! December.
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister > Greeting.
I BEG you, my sister, to attend while I tell you of an answer once given by this very generous King Alex- ander. When asked where he kept all his treasures, he replied : " With my friends," — meaning that riches cannot be stored more securely: for when time and circumstances call for them, they return to us with usury. Let us learn, my sister, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and let us reflect that God has not given us so much wealth in order that we should hoard it for ourselves, but that we may distribute it to those who are in need. Farewell! nth December.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 75
LI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
I WAS astonished to-day, my sister, to notice how the ancient pagan writers, though deprived of the know- ledge of our faith, show greater wisdom than we do. I read how Socrates said that one must ask nothing of God but His grace, and reproved those who prayed for a«wife with a large dowry, riches, honours, king- doms or a long life — as though they wished to in- struct God as to what ought to be done. Let us not act thus, my sister, for God knows better than we do what is good for us and what is not. Farewell!
LII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
IT was the custom among the Lacedaemonians that at their banquets the oldest man among them should point to the door and say : " Not a word spoken in this company must go beyond these doors," demon- strating that nothing said during the liberty of the feast should be afterwards reported. Lycurgus in- stituted this custom.
Let us, then, avoid tale-bearers and flatterers, my sister, and imitate Alexander who, when anyone was accused before him, stopped up one of his ears. On being asked why he did so : "I reserve," said he, " the other entirely for the benefit of the accused." Fare- well!
76 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
LIII
Mary by the grace of God, Queen of Scots, to Francis, the Dauphin, Greeting.
WHEN I was reading of the great deeds of Alexander, the greatest soldier that ever lived, I observed, illus- trious Prince, that he loved nothing better than litera- ture. For when they brought him a little casket — so beautiful that nothing more exquisite could be found among the treasures of Darius — and asked him to what use it should be put, each making a different suggestion : " Homer shall be committed to its charge," said he, meaning that it could contain no greater treasure than this. And he expressed the same senti- ment on another occasion in another manner, when someone ran to him in great delight to relate some happy occurrence : " What great piece of fortune do you announce to me, my good man," he said, " if you do not tell me that Homer has come to life again?" — Signifying that all the glory of brave acts is perish- able compared with the genius of a poet so great as Homer. Love literature, then, illustrious Prince, which will not only augment your virtues, but will make your bravest actions immortal. Farewell! At St. Germain, I3th January. [So the Latin is dated, probably by mistake. The French is dated: 2Oth De- cember.]
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 77
LIV
Mary by the grace of God, Queen of Scots, to Francis, the Dauphin, Greeting.
THE love I bear you, illustrious Prince, emboldens me to entreat you to the utmost of your power to cherish virtuous and learned men, and that, above all, you love your instructor, following the example of Alexander, who honoured Aristotle with such reverence that he said he owed no less to him than to his own father. For from his father he had received life, but from his master he had learnt how to live worthily. Farewell !
LV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
AGESILAUS, noticing what a number of people were prone to avarice, was in the habit of admonishing his friends that they should not study so much how to enrich themselves, as how to gain strength and virtue. For riches are acquired in vain by him who lacks the true treasures of the soul. For, my sister, these latter remain with us and bring us honour, while the others deceive us, and perish in a moment. Farewell! At St. Germain.
78 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
LVI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister > Greeting.
ARISTIPPUS, on being asked what was the difference between those who were learned and those who were ignorant, replied : " As much as between a horse that has been trained and one that has not." For, just as a horse that has not been broken in is useless on ac- count of its ignorance and ferocity, so he who is transported by his impulses (which only philosophy can restrain) is useless in every circumstance of life.
At St. Germain, the day of St. John, after the Na- tivity of Christ.1 Farewell !
LVI I
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister > Greeting.
ARISTIPPUS said that it was better to be poor than to be ignorant, for the poor man only lacks money and the other lacks culture. And moreover, he is not less a man who lacks riches, while he is less a man who lacks wisdom. Moreover, he who lacks money may obtain it from those whom he may meet, while he who is deficient in prudence can ask no one to give it to him. We have sufficient riches, my sister; let us study to acquire wisdom.
At St. Germain, the last day of this year, 1554.
1 27th December.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 79
LVIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
WE must submit, my dearest friend and sister, to being corrected while we are young, in order that we may the more quickly become wise. And we must not say first to one and then to another: "What! is it your place to reprove me? "
Diogenes said to Zeniades, by whom he was pur- chased : " Although I am but a slave, yet it is necessary that you should obey me, just as he who owns a pilot or a doctor among his servants is constrained to obey them if he wishes to derive any profit from them."
I will not forget to tell you that I have heard that the king is feeling better than he did yesterday, for which I give thanks to God, and beg Him to keep you in good health.
At St. Germain, 5th January.
LIX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
EPENETUS was accustomed to say that liars were the authors of all crimes and all injuries; which sentiment does not disagree with the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which it is stated that through the deception of the serpent, the doors were opened to every kind of vice. Under the denomination of liars may also be classed flatterers, calumniators, evil councillors, and bad in-
8o QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
structors, who are the source of every evil. Since, then, a lie is so displeasing to God, and so damaging to men, let us endeavour, my sister, always to be truthful.
Farewell ! At St. Germain, 7th January.
LX
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
MANY beautiful stories witness to us that the an- cients were more careful of the commonwealth and the safety of its citizens than those who have lived since their time. Pomponius, a celebrated man and one deserving of high praise, being seriously wounded, was brought before Mithridates, who asked him whether he would become his friend?
"If thou wilt be a friend to the Romans," answered Pomponius, " I will also be thy friend."
You see that his very life was not more to him than the love he bore his country.
Farewell! 8th January.
LXI
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister, Greeting.
VERY elegantly has that poet expressed himself, who has said that liberty cannot be purchased at too high a price. Diogenes, a very great philosopher, was of this opinion when he replied to those who commended the good fortune of Aristotle, in that he lived with the
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 81
son of a king. " Aristotle," said he, " dines when it pleases Alexander, — Diogenes when it pleases Dio- genes," meaning that no one can be happy who lacks liberty.
Let us then, my sister, study art and good dis- cipline, by means of which we shall with ease obtain virtue, the mother and nurse of liberty: as is wit- nessed in the Holy Scriptures, where it is said that he who commits sin is the servant of sin.1 Farewell! 9th January.
LXII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister > Greeting.
DIOGENES said that good men were more truly the images and likenesses of the gods than statues of gold, silver or brass ; for it is the part of the gods to do good to all, and not to injure anyone; and this rather belongs to wise and good men than to statues, no matter how valuable they may be.
He also said something else (which you will praise very much), namely, that he should not be esteemed poor and miserable who has acquired philosophy and good friends, but on the contrary he should be con- sidered miserably poor who is not the possessor of virtue. Farewell !
1 John, viii, 34.
82 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
LXIII
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth^ her sister > Greeting.
I WAS reading to-day in Cicero, my sister, that we ought not to be unduly elated by happiness and pro- sperity; for, as Solon said, "I count no man happy before his death." Every chance comes round in turn, and if fortune smiles on us to-day, to-morrow it will threaten. Thus it happened to Policrates, a very powerful tyrant of Samos, and who was so fortunate that he gained the victory in every battle. And yet, in the end, Oretes, the prefect of Cyrus, King of Persia, conquered him and fixed him to a cross.
Therefore, the higher the station in life that we hold, the more humbly should we behave ourselves, saying with David, the king and prophet, " In Thy hands is my fate." " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Holy Name be praise, honour and glory, for ever and ever." x Farewell !
LXIV
Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth, her sister , Greeting.
WE must in no circumstances glorify ourselves on ac- count of any good fortune that comes to us, nor let our souls be too much cast down by adversity or in any way distressed; following the precept of Soc- rates, whose countenance was never seen either very
1 Psalm cxv, i.
EXERCISES WRITTEN IN 1554 83
much elated, or very much perturbed, and of whom Xantippe witnessed that he always returned home in the same humour as when he left it.
Further, if we are poor in this life, in this we re- semble God our Father, who had not where to lay His head. If men hate us, we are promised glory by the Queen of Heaven. Farewell!
84 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
QUATRAIN WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF PRAYERS,
BELONGING TO ANNE OF LORRAINE, IS591
IF 'tis ordained that this page should bear That which most pleases you to keep in mind,
Let but this token of my love be there, Our trusting hearts for evermore to bind!
1 These lines, of which the French original will be found in Appendix IV, are printed in Pawlowski's " Poesies Frangaises de Marie Stuart," in " Le Livre" for 1883. The original prayer- book in which Mary wrote them is said to be in the collection of the Due de la Valliere, in the Bibliotheque de 1' Arsenal, Paris. They are signed " Royne de France, Marie," and are interesting as belonging to a period in Mary's history which has trans- mitted to us very few documents in her own hand. Anne of Lorraine, according to Pawlowski, was a princess of Orange, afterwards Duchess of Aerschot, and Mary's aunt.
ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS II 85
VERSES ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS II I5601
i
THE voice of my sad song
With mournful sweetness guides
My piercing eye along
The track that death divides ; — 'Mid sharp and bitter sighs, My youth's bright morning dies.
II Can greater woes employ
The scourge of ruthless fate? Can any hope, when joy
Forsakes my high estate?
My eye and heart behold
The shroud their love enfold.
Ill
O'er my life's early spring And o'er its opening bloom,
1 From Brantome's "Vies des Dames Illustres," Leyden, 1665. The above is Miss Strickland's translation, which I think is the best of the many that have been attempted. For some reason Miss Strickland did not translate verse 7, repre- senting it instead by a line of asterisks. I have, therefore, supplied the omission as well as I could. The original French will be found in Appendix IV.
86 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
My deadly sorrows fling
The darkness of the tomb ;
My star of hope is set . In yearning and regret.
IV That which once made me gay
Is hateful in my sight; The brightest smile of day
To me is darkest night.
No keener pangs contend,
Than mine, their stings to blend.
v Within my heart and eye
The image is portrayed Of grief, my garb doth typify:
And my pale features fade
To the wan violet's blue —
The mourning lover's hue.1
VI
For me, sad stranger here,
There is no resting-place: And blest would change appear
If. change might grief efface.
My bliss is now my woe —
All drear where'er I go.
1 Mary has classical precedent for this odd parallel, for Horace speaks of the " violet-tinctured paleness of lovers " — ". . . tinctus viola pallor amantium." (Odes, Book III, No. X.)
ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS II 87
VII Whether upon my way
Through wooded paths and flowers; Whether at break of day,
Or in the evening hours:
Still I must weep alone,
Mourning an absent one.
VIII When to the distant skies,
I raise my tearful sight, The sweetness of his eyes
Beams from the cloudy height ;
Or, in the clear, deep wave,
He smiles, as from the grave.
IX
When day's long toil is o'er,
And dreams steal round my couch, I hear that voice once more,
I thrill to that dear touch.
In labour, in repose,
My soul his presence knows.
I see no other thing,
Or beautiful or bright, Save that which love's fond memories bring
Before my mental sight; —
And ne'er from this sad heart
Its presence can depart.
88 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
XI
My song, — these murmurs cease, With which thou hast complained.
Thine echo shall be peace:
Love, changeless and unfeigned, Shall draw no weaker breath, In parting or in death.1
1 It is disappointing to find that M. Pawlowski, I am afraid with some reason, doubts the authenticity of this poem, which, having been preserved to us by a contemporary and an intimate friend of Mary's, seemed to be above suspicion, and has been accepted as hers without question since 1659. It appears that M. Galy, author of " La Chanson de Marie Stuart," has dis- covered that the poem " En mon triste et doux chant" is in fact only part of another longer poem by an unknown author, which he himself found in manuscript among Brantome's own papers. I do not know whether this discovery must be looked upon as absolutely final. It is hard to give up the idea that these charm- ing lines were composed by Mary, but if MM. Pawlowski and Galy are correct in their inference, we cannot excuse Brantome from the blame of having sacrificed the truthfulness of his narra- tive to his love of the picturesque.
VERSES WRITTEN BY MARY STUART IN A BOOK OF HOURS, DURING HER IMPRISONMENT
From the original MS. in the Imperial Library, St. Petersburg
[To face p.
"THE DIAMOND SPEAKS" 89
"THE DIAMOND SPEAKS" (A POEM ADDRESSED TO ELIZABETH)
NOT that in long endurance I exceed
The measured strength of metal or of flame,
Not that art's self my maker's hand did lead, Nor that a golden circlet doth proclaim My glittering parts, — ah, not in these my pride !
Pure is my radiance, white as Phoebus' star, And, for my outward form, a perfect heart:
True and unblemished, as her wishes are Who sends me hither. She, my counterpart In all save this, — my hardness set aside.
Who would have dreamed that I, without regret, Should pass from one fair mistress to the next, And, in so doing, my first love forget? —
1 This 'poem is taken from Sir Thomas Chaloner's " De Re- publica Anglorum Instauranda," published in 1579. Chaloner states that the Latin version which he prints is a " Translation of certain verses which were first written in the French lan- guage, and were sent by the most serene Queen of Scotland to the most serene Elizabeth, Queen of England, in pledge of mutual friendship, and together with a ring of excellent work- manship, in which a remarkable diamond was conspicuous." For some remarks as to the authenticity and probable date of this poem see Appendix V.
90 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
And leaving one, by one as great annex'd, Glory in this my fortune and my pride!
Ah! let me bind each traitor heart, and thrust O'er each a chain of adamant so fair
That never malice, hatred and mistrust Come to intrude and work a ruin there!
Not all the orient's garnered treasure-shrine Can rob me of the triumph of those days.
But all shall hail my presence, as the sign And emblem of a heart which love obeys : And all art's triumph yield to virtue's praise.
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH 91
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH
I5661 PART I. AN ADDRESS
MY LORDS, who are now present with me: Since it has pleased God to visit me with this illness, and yet, in His infinite goodness, to grant me time and leisure to express to you my will and intentions (and also to implore mercy of Him for the many and very great offences which I have committed against Him): I will not forget to make this discourse in your presence, to make known to you the inclination I feel to further the good of this country and the business of this world, no less than my sense of the duty I owe my Lord, my God. And first, you know the good will and readiness I
1 The whole of this speech is printed in the original Scots in Small's "Queen Mary at Jedburgh" (Edinburgh, 1881). The original document, in an unknown hand, is in the Register House, Edinburgh. It seems to be the report of an eye-witness of the touching interview between Mary and her lords. Mary, when she made this speech, believed herself to be at the point of death. Nau describes her mysterious attack of illness in de- tail, seeming rather to attribute it to poison. I have divided the speech, as it seems to fall naturally, into two parts — an address and a prayer. In the original it is all in one. Following my previously-formed plan, I have also modernized the language, so as to bring the speech into harmony with the rest of Mary's compositions. I am quoting it from Stevenson's notes to Nau's " Memoirs of Mary."
92 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
have always shown in the interest of the general welfare and repose of this realm, and also the love and very earnest affection I feel towards you all in general and each one in particular, endeavouring in every way to unite you together in a similar love, charity and concord. For this reason, I expect in you the same love and affection and common accord (an example of which I have always wished to be to you) by which we all, as members of one commonwealth, may be drawn closer together, and hold this same faith and obedience, due as much to God and to our public life, as it is necessary for the due administra- tion of justice among the subjects of this realm.
You know how true it is that countries and pro- vinces are always injured by a divided government; and, on the other hand, by means of agreement and unity, they are established, pacified and advanced. For this reason, above all others, I require you to have charity, love and concord among yourselves.
Secondly, I commend to you my son, your natural prince, begging you most earnestly to be careful to bring him up and nourish him in the fear of God-and in all virtues and profitable pursuits, as you will answer for it to God and the commonwealth of this realm. And I charge you that you allow no evil companions to be near him during his youth, in case he should be induced, through wicked influences, to forget his duty to his God and the world. And I desire that he may be corrected in his youth, so that in later years he may reign as a Christian and virtuous prince in this realm.
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH 93
My Lords, you know the goodness I have shown to certain persons whom I have advanced to a high degree of honour and pre-eminence above others : who, notwithstanding, have shown me more than ingrati- tude,1 which has reduced me to the despair I now endure, and is also the cause of my illness. I pray God to reclaim them !
And there are others besides who have injured me cruelly, and yet on whom I desire no great vengeance, referring them to God, who, I am sure, will listen to my just cause. Yet I implore you, on all accounts, if it should happen that after my death they return to this country, that you will not permit them access to my son, nor allow them either influence or authority near his person.
Since, then, it has pleased God to shorten my days, and since I have lived in a station of great honour and distinction up to the present time, I now put from me all such vanities, and consider myself one of the humblest and poorest creatures on the earth, casting myself at the feet of my Creator, ready to embrace His will.3
You know also, my Lords, the favour I have shown to you since my arrival in this country, and that I have pressed none of you who profess the religion
1 This is the only possible allusion to Darnley throughout the speech. In the next paragraph Mary is referring to the rebel lords who had been banished for their share in the murder of Rizzio.
a The following irrelevant sentence occurs at this point in the original : " Nevertheless, after my decease, ye shall have regard to cause card [bury] my body."
94 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
that is according to your consciences. I implore you also, on your part, not to constrain those who profess the old Catholic faith. If you knew what it is for a person to be in extremity, as I am, and that he is forced to reflect that he must render account of his faults as I must, you would never press them. I pray you, brother, Earl of Murray, that you trouble none.
My Lords, you know that before I was taken ill I made my will, as well as I conveniently could, which, having been sealed, signed, and closed with a stamp, is now at Stirling. I beg you all most earnestly, and for the honour of God, to open it, and to take care that the points contained in it are observed and executed: feeling myself most certain that what it contains is in no way prejudicial to the laws of this realm. And if perhaps things are not so well estab- lished as is needful, I beg you all with one accord to provide in the best possible manner for the govern- ment of the country according to its laws — which I have never meant to controvert.
Monsieur du Croc,1 you see how it has pleased God to visit me with this malady, from which it is evident that the hour of my death approaches, and that it pleases my God to call me out of this life to His mercy. Hence I will speak to you of four things:
In the first place, you must testify to the King, my brother-in-law; the Queen, Madame my mother-in- law; to Madame my grandmother; to Monseigneur the Cardinal [of Lorraine], and to all my Lords my uncles, that I die in the Catholic faith, in which I was 1 The French ambassador from Charles IX.
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH 95
educated, and which I followed when I was in France, and to which I have remained faithful since my return to this country.
Secondly, you must recommend my son to the King and Queen, for some day he may do them service. I desire that the alliance may still continue.
Thirdly, you must ask their Majesties' pardon for me if I have at any time offended them, which I never intended to do.
Fourthly, I request the King to continue my dowry one year after my death to recompense my good and faithful servants. Therefore I beg you, Monsieur du Croc, to remember carefully the things I have said to you, and to render faithful witness, and also to ask Madame, my grandmother, and all my Lords, my uncles, to forgive my shortcomings, for in me they lose the princess in the world that has loved them best! I am sure that they will be very much grieved to lose me, but it is our part to submit to the will of God.
PART II. A PRAYER
O MY GOD, Creator of heaven and earth, who of Thine infinite goodness hast sent Thine only Son Jesus Christ our Saviour into this world, to take our human nature upon Him, and to shed His precious blood for the redemption of me and all Christians: with a most humble heart I acknowledge and confess that I am the work of Thy hands, and that of Thine infinite goodness Thou hast appointed me (unworthy
96 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
as I am) to rule and govern this people committed to my charge, and to be to them a lantern and light of good life, and that for this purpose Thou hast endued me with various graces and virtues, which, neverthe- less, I have not used as my duty required me! For this reason, my God, I remit myself to Thy mercy, and desire Thy favour towards the grievous offences I have committed, though they worthily deserve punishment.
But, O my God, Thou hast promised mercy and forgiveness to all those who with a penitent heart desire pardon. Grant me mercy, for I seek not long life in this world, but only that Thy will may be ful- filled in me!
O my God, Thou hast appointed me over the people of this realm, to rule and govern them. If, therefore, it be Thy will that I remain to them in this mortal life, even though it may involve pain to my body, yet if it please Thy Divine goodness, I will give myself to Thy keeping. But if Thy pleasure and purpose be to call me from hence, so I come, and with good will submit myself to Thy pleasure, being as well content to die as to live, desiring only that Thy will may be fulfilled. And just as the good King Hezekiah, afflicted with illness and other in- firmities, submitted himself to Thy Divine will and pleasure, so do I the same.
O most merciful Creator, I confess that I have not used Thy gifts to the advancement of Thy glory and honour, nor have I set so good an example of life to my people committed to my charge as I ought
FAREWELL SPEECH AT JEDBURGH 97
to have done, but rather have been carried away by the frailty of my disposition, and in so doing have offended Thy Majesty. Nor have I used my eyes as my duty required, for which reason Thou hast now most worthily taken from me the use of them.1 But, my God, Thou who of Thy goodness and infinite grace didst heal the man who was born blind, and didst restore to him the power of sight, grant unto me that so long as I live in this mortal life, not only I may have the use of these mortal eyes, but also that with the eyes of faith and spirit I may behold Thy Divine goodness.
0 Lord, I have in no way faltered from Thy faith, but have continued and constantly persevered in the Catholic religion, in which I was nourished and brought up, and which, before Thy Divine goodness, and in the presence of all that understand me,2 I profess, desiring Thee, of Thine infinite goodness, to grant me strength and constancy to persevere in the same to my last sobs, and that I may not falter, but ever continue steadfast in it.
1 Nau states that on the third day of Mary's illness she lost her sight. See his " Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots," p. 31.
2 This passage seems to imply that Mary was speaking in French.
H
98 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
REFLECTIONS AT LOCHLEVEN 1 567-8.'
ALAS! my soul, since God permits this for thy sins, shouldst thou not kiss the rod which chastens thee, and adore the infinite mercy which chastises thee with temporal suffering, instead of making thee the object of wrath which is kindled in an eternity of flames? And since this befalls thee to prove thy virtue, dost thou fear to pass through the furnace where the great Refiner will purge away thy dross to make thee shine as pure gold? Wherefore art thou so sorrowful, my heart? Is it because thou art deprived of liberty or of the delights of a court? Take now the wings of contemplation and love, rise
1 Caussin, Mary's contemporary biographer, puts these words into her mouth. (See his " Histoire de 1' Incomparable Marie Stuart," in Jebb's " De Vita et Rebus Gestis Mariae Scotorum Reg.") It is possible that Caussin may have gained his informa- tion of the details of Mary's life (as to which he seems well- informed) from those of her ladies who retired to France, either after her death or when their service was at an end. Brantome obtained many particulars of her imprisonment and death in this way. Possibly by such a channel some manuscript in Mary's hand, dating from her Lochleven imprisonment, and perhaps preserved by Mary Seton or Marie de Courcelles, may have come into Caussin's hands. It is impossible to say more than this for the genuineness of the quotation. Miss Strickland seems to accept it without question,
REFLECTIONS AT LOCHLEVEN 99
far above this Lake of Leven, fly beyond the seas which environ our isles, and learn that there is no prison for the soul enfranchised by God, and that all the world belongs to him who knows how to despise it !
ioo QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
SONNET TO ELIZABETH
IS68(?)1
A LONGING haunts my spirit, day and night, Bitter and sweet, torments my aching heart ; 'Twixt doubt and fear, it holds its wayward part,
And, while it lingers, rest and peace take flight.
Dear sister, if these lines too boldly speak Of my fond wish to see you, 'tis for this — That I repine and sink in bitterness,
If still denied the favour that I seek.
Ah! I have seen a ship freed from control On the high seas, outside a friendly port,
And what was peaceful change to woe and pain :
1 From the Cotton MSS., Caligula B.V., fol. 316. This poem — in French and Italian— is supposed to have been composed by Mary in 1568, shortly after her arrival in England. The original manuscript is not in Mary's hand. It is endorsed : " Carmina Reginae Scotiae ad Angliae Reginam." Malcolm Laing published it (" History of Scotland," vol. ii, Appendix, pp. 220 and 221), and commented upon it as follows : " This sonnet must have been written when Mary solicited admission to Elizabeth's presence, upon her arrival in England ; as the same comparison is em- ployed in a letter to Elizabeth, 24th September, 1568. lje vous ay asses souvent prie1 de recevoir mon namre agiti en votre port durant le tourmante. Si a ce coup, elle y trouveraport de salut, je y jeteray mes ancres pour jamais; autrement la barque est dans la guarde de Dieu] " etc. The poem, in the original French and Italian, will be found in Appendix IV.
SONNET TO ELIZABETH 101
Ev'n so am I, a lonely, trembling soul, Fearing — not you, but to be made the sport
Of Fate, that bursts the closest, strongest chain ! l
1 With'a curious sense of contrast, one turns from these lines to the little poem or " ditty," as Puttenham calls it, composed by Elizabeth in reference to her unfortunate cousin, and which, though not written till many years later, seems almost like a stern reply to Mary's solicitations. At least, the two lines,
" No forreine bannisht wight shall ancre in this port, Our realme it brookes no stranger's force, let them elsewhere resort!"
seem like an ironical comment on poor Mary's touching parallel of a ship in distress. See Puttenham's "Arte of English Poesie," published in 1589. Puttenham's warm eulogies on Elizabeth's composition were perhaps partially written with the idea that they might one day fall beneath the exacting eye of his royal mistress.
102 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
FAREWELL TO HER BANISHED SERVANTS
I57L1
MY faithful and good servants : — Since it has been the pleasure of God to visit me with so much adversity, and now with this close imprisonment and separation from you, my servants, — I render thanks to this same God, who has given me strength and patience to en- dure it; and I pray this good God to grant you the same grace, that you may console yourselves and re- flect that your banishment is caused by the good ser- vice you have rendered me, your princess and mistress.
1 This letter is printed in the original French by Prince Alexander Labanoff in his "Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," vol. iii, p. 378. He quotes from a copy in the Archives du Royaume, in Paris, " Cartons des Rois," K, No. 95. Although I had not at first intended to include any of Mary's letters in this collection, it occurred to me that this particular one is filled with so much abstract thought that it is of sufficiently general interest to deserve a place among her miscellaneous composi- tions. It was written in September, 1571, after Elizabeth, enraged by the discovery of the negotiations for Mary's marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, had sent peremptory orders that all the captive queen's servants, above the number of sixteen, were to be immediately dismissed. Shrewsbury, who had to execute this order, describes Mary's distress in a letter to Cecil : " She shewed herself exceedingly sorrowful when she heard that some of her servants should be removed from her, and seemed to despair the continuance of her life; but respecting my duty without credit to her words, I applied myself to take order in despatching away her servants above the number appointed."
FAREWELL TO HER SERVANTS 103
For at least it will be a great honour to you that you have given such proof of your fidelity in so great a necessity; and when it shall please the good God to grant me my liberty, I shall never fail towards any of you, but shall recompense you according to my power. In the meantime, I have written to my ambassador to attend to your needs, as it is not in my power to do more for you, according to my wish.
And now, at your departure, I charge you all, in the name of God and for my blessing, that you be good servants of God and do not murmur against Him on account of any affliction which may come upon you, for thus it is His custom to visit His chosen. I recommend to you the faith in which you have been baptized and instructed in my company, bearing in mind that outside the ark of Noah there is no salva- tion. And even as you recognize no other princess except me alone, so I beseech you to make profession with me of one God, one faith and one Catholic Church — as the greater number of you have already done. And especially you who are but newly recalled from your errors seek to be more perfectly instructed and grounded in the faith ; and pray to God to send you constancy, for to such God will never deny His grace. And as to you, Master John Gordon and William Douglas,1 I pray God to inspire your hearts! I can do no more.
1 This was Willie Douglas, the boy of sixteen, who risked his life to effect Mary's escape from Lochleven, and whose services she never forgot. See the charming account of this adventure in Nau's " Memoirs of Mary Stuart," pp. 85-90. Nau, who was
104 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Secondly, I command you that you live in friend- ship and holy charity one with another, and that you bear with one another's imperfections ; and now, being separated from me, that you mutually assist each other with the means and graces that God has given you, and, above all, pray to God for me. Make my affectionate commendations to Monsieur the French ambassador in London, and make known to him the condition in which I am. And in France, present my humble recommendations to Messieurs my uncles and my friends, and particularly to Madame my grand- mother— whom let one of you go and visit on my behalf. Beg Messieurs my uncles to make urgent suit to the King, the Queen and Monsieur, that my poor subjects in Scotland may be succoured. And in case I should die here, that they will take my son and my friends under the same protection as myself, in ac- cordance with the ancient league between Scotland and France.
Recommend me to Messieurs de Fleming, Glasgow and George Douglas, and to all my loyal subjects; and tell them to be of good courage, and not to be paralysed by my misfortunes, but let each of them do the best he can, and endeavour to obtain from all the princes assistance for our party. And let them con- sider me no further in their schemes : for I am content to endure every kind of misery and suffering, even death, in the cause of my country's liberty. If I die,
Mary's secretary during the last years of her life, must have obtained his information from her own lips, or at least from Jane Kennedy or Mary Seton, two eye-witnesses.
FAREWELL TO HER SERVANTS 105
I regret only that I shall not have the means to reward them for their services and for the losses they have sustained in my quarrel : but I trust that even if it should happen thus, God will not leave them without recompense, but will incline my son and the other Catholic princes, my friends and allies, to accord them their protection. If Monsieur de Seton is able to re- ceive news from me, send him a copy of this letter.
Finally, if I have not been as good a mistress to you as necessity demanded, God is my witness that the means, and not the good will, have been lacking, and if I have reproved you with severity, God is my witness that I did so with the intention of benefiting you, and never in order to abandon you, nor from want of affection. I implore you to find consolation in God: and you, William Douglas, be assured that the life you hazarded for mine will never be neglected while I have a friend living. Do not part company until you reach the court of France, but go all together to seek my ambassador there, and declare to him all you have seen and heard of me and of my affairs. So I pray God, from a sad and afflicted heart, that He will be the protector of my country and of my faithful subjects : and that He will pardon those who have in- flicted such injuries upon me, and who have been so hostile to me, and incline their hearts to a ready peni- tence: and that He will give grace to all of you, and to me also, to submit ourselves to His pleasure!
Written in prison, in Sheffield Castle, i8th Septem- ber, 1571.
io6 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
MEDITATION IN VERSE
I573-1
ALAS ! when others hail the hour of sleep, And troubles, laid aside, seem all forgot,
For me 'tis then that haunting Memory Calls up the picture of my bitter lot ;
1 Leslie, Bishop of Ross, published this poem of Mary's in his "Piae Afflicti Animi Consolationes," Paris, 1574. In his " Negotiations " (Anderson's Collections, vol. iii, p. 248), Leslie tells us how these lines of Mary's came to be composed, and how it was his own book that suggested to her the reflections expressed in the poem. After describing his imprisonment in England, in connection with the Ridolphi conspiracy, he says : " At my departing furth of the Tower, I had licence to write to the Queene my Mistress (as I did) advertizing her of my trans- porting from the Tower to my Lord of Winchester's and sent her a Treaty in Latin^ which I made dureing my remaining within the Tower, intitled, Piae afflicti animi meditationes divina- que remedia^ which I dedicated unto her for her Comfort, wherof she sent me answer againe, which I received at Farn- hame Castle in September^ tnat she liked very well of my Treaty, and had received great comfort thereby, but was sorry that I had gotten no farther Liberty, than to be transported from one prison to another. . . . And in respect the Queene my Mistress was so much comforted by the last Treaty I sent her, I took occasion to write another which was intituled, Tranquilli animi conservatio et munimentum, which was compleate and sent to the Counsaile of England in June, 1573, where it was perused, and licence granted me to send it to the Queene my Mistress, which I did prime Octobris 1573, whereof I received answer againe, that the same liked her well, and therewith sent a
MEDITATION IN VERSE 107
And I recall how swift my life has waned From joy to sorrow. Then, upon my face, Gather the bitter drops that joy efface!
And later, when I gently meditate On subjects neither frivolous nor vain,
Concerning all the world's inconstancy, And small assurance in the sons of men, 'Tis then I judge that naught is permanent, Evil or good, beneath the firmament. —
And this again recalls those counsels sage, Pronounced long since by Solomon the wise :
I have, said he, turned o'er life's every page That could have warmed my heart or pleased my
eyes,
But have found naught in this round, earthy mass But vanity, as all things come and pass! The truth of his wise words well proved has been For me in these our days, for I have seen How those whose proud heads seemed to touch
the sky Have fallen, when the tempest's breath drew nigh.
The greatest kings, monarchs and emperors too, Have no assurance of their royal state;
To build a palace, own a revenue, Is vanity — we learn it when too late!
Testimony of her diligent perusing the first Treaty of the Godly meditations, out of which she had drawn summary collections, and put the same in French meetre, which is patent to be seen, etc." It is fortunate for us that it occurred to Leslie to publish this and two other poems of Mary's in his own book, as they would otherwise have been lost to the world. The original French will be found in Appendix IV.
io8 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
To come of noble parentage can be
No talisman to shield from misery!
Fine clothes and sports, dancing and merry laughter
Soon pass : while mourning and regret come after.
And beauty, which we learn so well to prize,
Fades, as old age begins to dim the eyes.
To eat and drink and folly's arts to sue, Ends but in sickness and in misery,
While friends and riches, aye, and learning too, Are vain the soul's desires to satisfy. Thus all our blessings in this life of pain Are hard to win and harder to retain! — And still we look for happiness below, Where all that meets us is an empty show ! Ah! we must seek in a far other place The true repose, true happiness and grace, All which is promised us in mercy sweet, If we but cast us at our Saviour's feet. For 'tis not here, but in the distant Heaven, That our eternal heritage is given. O Father, who dare hope to see that hour, Without the help of Thine Almighty power? Else, what avail to quit sin and offence, Or make the lowliest act of penitence? — Or who could boldly this vain world despise, And Thee alone invoke, adore and prize? Not one, for sure, if Thy dear clemency Had not advanced us to this mystery. Then, O my Saviour, Father, Deity, Do Thou in tender mercy look on me! — As on that sinful woman long ago,
MEDITATION IN VERSE 109
Who, kneeling at Thy feet, bemoaned her woe. And Peter was forgiven too, — the same Who with a coward's oath denied Thy name. As unto them, O give me now Thy grace, And let Thy mercy all my sins efface! Withdraw my soul from its poor, earthly claims, And in Eternity fix Thou its aims. Saviour, such resignation grant to me, And love and faith and confidence in Thee, Humility and meek desire to pray, Following in Thy footsteps day by day, — That all my sins may be at last forgiven, Through Thy pure wisdom, sent anew from Heaven. O guard my steps, that Truth may rest in me, And gentle faith, with boundless charity, While chastity and humble perseverance Shall fill my heart with meek obedience. Preserve me, gracious Lord, from every sin, And every day augment the faith wherein My Mother-Church has reared and cherished me, — Within whose precincts I alone am free!
Save me from sin and ignorance and pride, Which drive us to the mournful gates of death,
And grant, O Lord, that ever at my side
May stand my guardian angel. So my breath That falters o'er its praises, prayers and tears, Its sighs and aspirations, hopes and fears, May to his care consign all earthly grief, And find in Thy forgiveness sweet relief. And, while my steps still tread this woeful place, Let Thy pure spirit shine upon my face! —
i io QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
So when, my Saviour, from captivity,
Thy clemency and goodness set me free,
And when I turn to bid a last adieu
To woe and grief and sickness, then I sue
That Thou wilt grant me this one favour yet,
That never shall my weeping soul forget
Thy grace and mercy, and Thy boundless love,
Which Thou hast ever sent me from above.
I plead no merit. Witness, on my part,
Thy Passion, deeply graven in my heart.
My God, forsake me not! See, I entreat,
In that most crucial change, which comes too late
To please my ardent soul, that at Thy feet,
Forgiven, I may claim the hour that now I wait !
POEM ON SACRIFICE in
POEM ON SACRIFICE
I573-1
THE wrath of God the blood will not appease Of bulls and goats upon His altars shed, Nor clouds of fragrant incense upward spread, —
He joyeth not in sacrifice like these.
Those, Lord, who would Thee in their offerings please, Must come in faith, by hope immortal led, With charity to man, and duteous tread
Thy paths, unmurmuring at Thy high decrees.
This the oblation which is sweet to Thee: A spirit tuned to prayer and thoughts divine,
Meek and devout, in body chastely pure.
O Thou Ail-Powerful, grant such grace to me, That all these virtues in my heart may shine,
And to Thy glory evermore endure.
1 This poem is also taken from Leslie's " Piae Afflicti Animi Consolationes," the above being Miss Strickland's translation. It was most likely composed about the same time as the pre- ceding poem. The original French is in Appendix IV.
ii2 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
POEM ADDRESSED TO THE BISHOP OF
ROSS AFTER HIS LIBERATION
FROM PRISON. I574.1
SINCE God, in His wondrous goodness,
Has given you so much joy, That from your prison you issue,
Your conscience without alloy: O thank His Divine compassion,
Through whom such gifts you gain, And pray Him, in meek submission,
To pity my lengthened pain!
1 This poem does not appear in the first edition of Leslie's " Consolationes," but is printed in a French translation of the same work, which appeared in Paris in 1593. Possibly the MS. of this poem did not come into Leslie's hands until some time after he had received the other two. It must, at all events, have been written in 1574. See Pawlowski's "Poesies Franchises de Marie Stuart," in "Le Livre," 1883. The original French will be found in Appendix IV.
WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF HOURS 113
VERSES WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF HOURS
I579C?)1
WAS ever known a fate more sad than mine?
Ah! better death for me than life, I ween! For me there is no sorrow's anodyne :
T'wards me all change their nature and their mien.8
Soaring above the heavens, clear and wide,
To-day alas! is honour seen no more. Here has she closed her course, and will abide
To find her rest upon this friendly shore.
1 From LabanofFs "Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," 1844 edition, vol. vii, pp. 346-352. The book in which these lines are written is preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. For some remarks on its history, see Appendix VI. It is im- possible to conjecture the meaning of some of the lines.
2 Chacun change pour moi dShumeur et de nature. Professor Smyth, who saw the book in 1862, remarks : "... in the fourth line of the first extract the original leading word stood chacuneJoMt has been altered to chacun^ an alteration only of a letter, but in- dicating volumes ; for is it not a proof of poor Mary's true woman- hood, and a touching confession that if in the midst of her contrary fates and unhappy imprisonment, when death was already beginning to appear her only alternative, she felt inclined to accuse her female attendants of turning round upon her in misfortune, and changing their feelings and dispositions from what they once were; yet, on maturer consideration, she ex- punged this libel on her own sex, and acknowledged that, though her lords might have abandoned her now, her ladies were con- stant and faithful. . . .?" ("Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. iii.)
I
ii4 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
'Tis I alone who guide the hours and days, And ever follow my appointed round,
Quitting my path in dark and hidden ways, To scatter light and radiance all around.1
She who gives praises and doth not dissemble, For all around her love and generous care,
Need but aspire her own self to resemble, And be no less than this — an angel fair!2
Despised and doubted, can the heart forget Past wrong and pain, nor let its grief be seen?
Ah, well may such exclaim, in wild regret, " I am no longer what I once have been!"
And if our hearts should glow with warmer feeling, We need not think it strange or out of place,
That tender moods come softly o'er us stealing, Through gazing on a holy angel's face.
As my reward, than this I ask no more, For all the love and faith we ever knew, —
Send me, my guardian angel, I implore, As much of these as I have given you !
1 A writer in "Willis's Current Notes "for February, 1854, suggests that the allusion in this verse is to the sun, to which, perhaps, Mary is comparing her own regular and monotonous course. See original French in Appendix IV.
2 The same writer states that this verse refers to a page on which is figured an angel. This, however, still leaves the mean- ing rather obscure.
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WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF HOURS 115
My friends pretend to mourn my misery,
— They wish me in the tomb, my woes forgot!
And if, in dying, I should helpless lie,
Upon my garments they would cast their lot!
The right to bear these arms doth but belong
To those brave hearts who know not doubt or fear :
— Heritage of the noble and the strong,
Who quail not when misfortune draweth near.1
Time, than fortune, should be held more precious, For Fortune is as false as she is specious!
Age is a malady that naught can cure, And youth a blessing we may not retain ;
The birth of man doth but his death ensure, And happiness is but postponed pain!2
1 Professor Smyth informs us that on several pages of the " Book of Hours," appear certain heraldic shields, from which the arms have been defaced. For his account of the book, see Appendix VI.
2 There is no means of fixing the date of these verses with any certainty. On one page in the book Mary has written the date 1579, and I have therefore taken that on supposition, as a probable date. The verses may, of course, have been written separately, on various occasions.
ii6 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY
1 5 So.1
HE who desires that others should have no right to mock at or to disparage his work, ought, it seems to me, above all things, to make so good a choice of the subject he proposes to treat, that no one can apply to him the ancient adage : ne sutor ultra crepidam. This is why, leaving philosophy to philosophers, laws to legislators, and to poets the making of songs, enriched with fictions, metamorphoses, histories, and profitable teaching, and, briefly, giving to each respectively the opportunity of rendering testimony according to his vocation, I have thought that I could not better employ my time (to avoid indolence, and now that I am deprived of the means of exercising the charge to which God called me in my cradle) than by dis- coursing upon the diversity of human afflictions and the various accidents of mortal life. Nor can anyone, I think, justly blame me for choosing this theme (to
1 From the original document in the State Paper Office, Mary Queen of Scots, vol. xi, 37. It is curious that this paper seems to have escaped the notice of Prince Alexander Labanoff, who has published such an exhaustive collection of Mary's writings, and who went so carefully through the State Papers in his researches. He would certainly have thought it a valuable addition to his " Recueil." The essay, in the original French, will be found in Appendix VII. The MS. is undated, but has been bound up with the State Papers for 1580.
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 117
me so familiar!) seeing that no person of our age, especially of my quality, has had greater experience therein. It will at least furnish the kindly-disposed with material on which to exercise their charity, in fulfilment of the commandment which enjoins us to " weep with those who weep " — especially when they come to consider the many daily afflictions to which we who suffer are subject — and thus they will take occasion to address themselves to God, in order, by prayer and intercession, to turn away His wrath from us. While those afflicted like me, who may happen to read this little discourse, will learn from the ex- ample of persons who have suffered similar miseries before them, that the only remedy lies in turning to God, who always invites them to do so.
But, since there are various kinds of affliction — those, on the one hand, that concern the inner and nobler side of man, and therefore the most dangerous ; on the other hand, those lesser evils that pertain only to the body — I have resolved, in order to avoid con- fusion, to treat of each in turn, commencing with those more serious griefs which have resulted in tragedy to persons who, obstinate in their resentment, and finding themselves on that account deserted by God, have allowed the torments of despair to drive them into the sin of self-destruction. And this, either from the influence of despair, or from lack of any inclination towards repentance and amendment.
Of all these, we shall endeavour to find examples, both in ancient pagan literature and among distin- guished persons in modern times. Then we shall
ii8 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
consider, on the contrary, the fate of those who, being afflicted with similar misfortunes, have received them as just and affectionate chastisement at the hands of that loving God and Father, whom they confess to having so often and so deeply offended. And for this reason tribulation has been to them as a furnace to fine gold — a means of proving their virtue, of opening their so-long-blinded eyes, and of teaching them to know themselves and their own failings. For this is the beginning of virtue, and the way to learn con- tempt for the world and its vanities, with submission to the good pleasure of the Creator, who has given us, in recompense, blessings both material and spiritual, in which all our happiness should consist.
And then we shall conclude, by the grace of God, with resolution and prayer to Him that it may please Him to give me perfect patience under my sufferings, and grace to amend my life, that I may be worthy to be named with those sufferers who have willingly carried their crosses in this world.1
Following the plan I have mentioned, I shall place in the first rank of afflictions, and as the bitterest that
1 The whole of this passage, from the words " And then we shall conclude," has been cancelled by Mary, who perhaps wished to suppress the personal element. There are many erasures in the document, but in some cases I have thought that the MS. loses by Mary's alterations, and have therefore used my own discretion in following them. In many cases, the sentences, as Mary has left them, do not make sense, and the cancelled portions are necessary to complete the meaning. In Appendix VII, where the original French is given, Mary's alterations have been carefully transcribed.
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 119
a man can suffer, the torments of an evil and guilty conscience, for this is a worm that gnaws continually, and for which no riches or success can compensate the victim. He can never enjoy repose, or know what it is to sleep in peace, undisturbed by the sus- picions of others; for sleep is a blessing denied to tyrants and so many others. For Cicero says: "In conscientia mille testes" * and for this very cause Abimelech was driven, in despair, to command one of his slaves to take his life, after having killed his brothers, and being only very slightly injured by a stone which was dropped on his head by a woman.2
Ahitophel, seeing his counsel neglected — he having treacherously rebelled against King David— hanged himself;3 Zimri, having basely killed his king, had himself miserably burnt in the royal palace at the end of seven days;4 and was not the worst sinner of all, Judas, overcome through this very cause, when, throwing down the thirty pieces of silver in the Temple, he confessed to having betrayed the just and innocent blood?
But, setting aside the Bible, let us take the example of a lesser man, Publius, who, having killed Marcus Marcellus, was rilled with such horror at his own action, that he did as much to himself. Catiline, in the same way, seeing his conspiracy discovered, pre- ferred to take his own life, rather than suffer such remorse and opprobrium. And among moderns, read
1 " In conscience are a thousand witnesses."
2 Judges, ix, 50-54.
3 2 Samuel, xvii, 23. 4 i Kings, xvi, 18.
120 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
P[aulus?] J. . . . [Jovius?], and see what he says of the tyrant Patavinus [?]. And I say the same of all those who are too desirous of fame, and who, being thwarted, doubted, or falsely accused, have so far forgotten themselves and abandoned hope as to lose faith and confidence in the justice of God, who has promised to deliver the innocent from all reproach, and to cleanse and efface the sins of those who in humility return to Him, according to the promise He has given us in the words : " Come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
How many lose patience under troubles such as these ! — and truly they are difficult to endure, for our Saviour Himself showed a curiosity as to His reputa- tion when He asked His disciples: "Whom say men that I am?" — even showing some anger 'on the occasion.
But, nevertheless, we must endeavour, through all these afflictions, to guard against the sin of impatience, lest we fall into a worse dishonour than before, for impatience is a very direct road to despair — so much so, that many a one, thinking to guarantee himself against blame, has fallen into far greater sin, and put an end to his own life.
Thus the devil whom men think to expel, may return with seven others worse than himself; and this is illustrated by the example of Cain, who, envious of the honour his brother had received (whose sacrifice was accepted by God with greater favour than his own), instead of amending his own sacrifice, chose to commit a really infamous crime, in
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 121
shedding his brother's blood. Being reproved on this account by God — always so careful of His children, and so prompt to admonish us in time to enable us to return to Him — instead of confessing his guilt, he refused to humble himself or to ask forgiveness, exclaiming only : " Every one that findeth me shall slay me!"
Oh, heart too proudly conscious of the shadow of honour, for whose sake thou dost sacrifice the true honour — this is to act like the dog, who, holding a piece of flesh in his mouth (the reflection of which in the water appears to be larger than itself) drops it to snatch at its shadow, which is nothing!
Jeroboam, also, having been publicly reproved by the prophet, and feeling the dishonour of this re- monstrance, committed a crime instead of repenting of his former sins, and gave orders that the holy man should be killed,1 not remembering that the real dis- honour to be avoided is sin, which must be abandoned, and (being forgiven) effaced by tears and repentance. Dreading the shame of an admonition, which should be considered but as the shadow beside the reality, he himself gave occasion for just reprobation, by perpetrating a crime and putting a just man to death.
Herod, in the same way, endeavoured to cloak his wicked life, which had been exposed by the reproofs of St. John, and contrived, by the advice of his un-
1 Mary seems to have fallen into a mistake here, as Jeroboam is not stated to have either killed or attempted any injury to- wards the prophet Ahijah, who denounced his conduct and fore- told its punishment (i Kings, xiv).
122 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
happy and sinful companion, to have this saintly and worthy man beheaded. But from this resulted only double chagrin and dishonour, for his sin was thereby made more publicly known than before. Having accomplished this crime, he refused the grace and pardon of God, deprived of which, he came to a miserable end, and his name remains to us as an example of wicked and abominable life.
The Jewish people, whose pride could not endure to suffer the reproofs of St. Stephen, stoned him to death, procuring by this means their eternal ruin and the immortal glory of their victim, who prayed for them as he died. Were they not, then, well recompensed?
For all else [than this sin of false pride] there is a remedy to be found, for God has told us that though our sins be red like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, while the glory of those who are innocent shall be the greater for having patiently supported the cross He has assigned them.
Moreover, not to omit pagan history, we may cite the case of Socrates, who, finding himself accused and condemned to death, wished to avoid the ignominy of such an end, and fell into another sin, — that of impatience.1
I shall mention also Scipio Africanus, who, seeing himself falsely accused of treachery to his fatherland, and seeking to evade the anger and suspicion of his countrymen, committed a fault even more worthy of
1 Mary surely does Socrates an injustice here, as, according to Plato's account, he met his death with perfect fortitude and composure.
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 123
blame, and lost the name of magnanimous, giving himself up to an unworthy life and becoming a volun- tary exile, to the great prejudice of the Republic, to which, to his honour, he was ever faithful. Otherwise he lost the title of good citizen, which is the most honourable name a man can gain, except that of a good Christian.
Coriolanus fell into the same sin, and worse, for he allowed his despair to make him the enemy of his own country. Determined upon its ruin, he invaded it at the head of a large army, on which occasion the women of his own family proved themselves to be better citizens than he who through this impatience effaced the lustre of all his previous noble acts.
But since among pagans such faults are not so re- prehensible, I will speak to you of Christians, and among others, of one who comes to my mind because I read of him not long ago. There was, then, a man named Pierre des Vignes,1 Chancellor of the Empire, a man of humble origin, but nevertheless of such good understanding and character, that he was on these accounts found worthy of so high a charge. And, moreover, he acted so honourably that the Emperor Frederick II, influenced by his worth and fidelity, gave him credit and authority to do as he pleased in his councils. From this ensued (what is very common in the courts of the great), that others, with envious hearts, produced forged letters and false witnesses against him, charging him before the Emperor with
1 Pietro de la Vigna (c. 1190-1249), minister of Frederick II, Emperor of Germany.
124 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
having had intelligence with Pope Innocent, his [Frederick's] capital enemy, to whom they asserted that he had revealed his secrets and communicated his letters.
The Emperor, too hastily believing the slander, ordered his eyes to be put out, and the unfortunate man, desperate through finding himself suspected by everyone, and deprived of the honours which his fidelity had won for him, took the loss of them so much to heart, that out of a good cause he made a bad one: and, unable to live through such shame and so evil a reputation, had himself led to a spot where the Emperor would pass him on his way to church. And here he sullied his honour by an infamy, and won the name of murderer of himself by dashing his head against a pillar in such a manner as to kill him- self on the spot.
But ah! dare I put before your eyes the example of a noble and virtuous prince — to whom I feel it an honour to be related — who, unable to bear a small dishonour, brought his illustrious name from evil repute into far worse (though it would not be fair in me to call him wicked)? l
He carried matters so far in the desire to avenge
1 It is difficult to know to whom Mary is referring in this passage. Can it be to Francis I and his disastrous and vindictive campaigns against Charles V, which resulted in his captivity and imprisonment in 1525, the occasion on which he wrote to his mother, Louise of Angouleme, the celebrated sentence : " All is lost, save honour," and then, as a recent novelist remarks, proceeded to fling away honour also. But Francis subsequently retrieved his fortunes and regained his freedom and his crown.
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 125
an injury, that he finally lost his worldly goods, and brought disgrace upon his name. In all this we see how necessary it is to receive the afflictions of God in humility and patience, whatever they may be.
Not to be too prolix on the various points I am treating, we will now speak of [revenge?].
0 act unworthy of a Christian, to whom not only is it not permitted to murmur at the rod of God, but who must even believe that he has merited far worse! for there is no crime or dishonour which cannot be wiped out and effaced by penitence, even as God has told us that though our sins be red like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and that if we are inno- cent, our recompense shall be the greater, and our glory the more excellent for having patiently sup- ported the cross He has only assigned us in order to prove our worth and to increase our merit.1
Or is the allusion, perhaps, to the Constable de Bourbon (Mary's maternal grandmother was a Bourbon, and the Bourbon family was, besides, closely connected by marriage with the royal house of France), who, after performing many brilliant services to his country, lost the favour of Francis I, partly owing, it is said, to the influence of the King's mother, whose affections are supposed to have been slighted by the Constable? Exasper- ated by injustice, and smarting under his wrongs, he carried his talents and allegiance over to Charles V, and was present at the battle of Pavia, in which Francis was made prisoner. He did not, however, find in Charles the readiness to reward his services that he had expected, and, disappointed and embittered he threw his energies into the war in Italy, and fell in the storm of Rome, 6th May, 1527, the fatal shot being fired, as is said, by Benvenuto Cellini.
1 It will be noticed that Mary here repeats herself. The whole essay is written in a rambling and desultory fashion, and should
126 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
And, nevertheless, O what misery we see daily caused through this notion of honour which men have forged in their own heads! The wisest, best, and greatest of men will lose their lives and hazard their souls on account of some libel, or some reflection lightly made. They thrust the law of God on one side, not only to vaunt their own praises, but to cast away their whole existence for so small a matter as a chance word which is but wind, and which, perhaps he who pronounced it would willingly retract.
And since this human law is so directly contrary to that of Jesus, alas* how we shall have to answer one day, we who allow the prince of this world such dominion over the flock : having had, moreover, such strict charge on the subject from the great celestial shepherd. God knows that I, for my part, have been a great sinner in this respect.
But it is time now to consider another aspect, and one which, in my opinion, affects very closely every person of a kindly nature and generous disposition. God, like the good father of a family, distributes His talents among His children, and whoever receives them and puts them out at profit is discharged and excused from eternal suffering. Those who thus win profit, receive a double reward, and are selected and summoned to infinite joy, as we learn from the parable of the rich man, who, going into a strange land, left to one of his servants three talents, to
not be too critically examined. The original MS. is probably nothing more than a rough draft, and it must be remembered that Mary has had no opportunity of correcting her work !
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY WRITTEN BY MARY STUART DURING HER CAPTIVITY IN ENGLAND
From the original MS. in the State Paper Office, London
[To face p. 12
ESSAY ON ADVERSITY 127
another two, and to another one. See St. M.1 xxv, St. Luke, xix. Thus, with St. Paul, we may say: " Omnia qui scripta sunt, nostra doctrina scripta sunt" 2 As humility is the virtue most pleasing to God, and the one in which all others find root and increase in perfection, and without which no other can come to any maturity, so is pride its opposite, for pride is the mother and source and augmentation of all vice, misery, and sin. But at the same time, we must be careful, and with prudent judgment consider that in endeavouring to avoid the latter, we should not fall into the disagreeable and ugly slough of pusillanimity, a thing unworthy of generous souls such as those should be who, by divine provision, are called to wield the sceptre, bear rank, and exercise authority over the people of God.3
1 St. Matthew.
2 Romans, xv, 4.
3 In translating this Essay, I have in many passages followed very closely the partial translation published by Miss Strickland in her "Lives of the Queens of Scotland." Throughout this volume I have been very much indebted to Miss Strickland's translations, from which I have often had occasion to borrow, feeling that her interpretation and wording could not be im- proved upon. I think it better to acknowledge my obligations to her in general here, rather than to interrupt the text with too many notes.
128 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
"TWO THOUGHTS" I582.1
HE knoweth not the truest courtesy,
Who grudgeth to display his wisdom's store,
And scorns to swell the poet's minstrelsy, O rather let him hoard no sacred store!
Death, envy, hatred, yea, the gods above Are deaf, estranged and pitiless to me ;
To pray, to suffer, weep and seek for love, The sole resources that through all I see!
1 These verses are in the Record Office (Mary Queen of Scots, vol. xii, 31). They are not in Mary's hand, but seem to be written in the regular and conventional hand of a copyist. Mr. Markham Thorpe, who compiled the calendars for Mary's period, attributes them to her, on the ground, I suppose, that it is otherwise difficult to account for their origin. It seems very probable that Mary wrote the lines, though we cannot be absolutely certain in this case. The original French will be found in Appendix IV.
POEM ON RESIGNATION 129
POEM ON RESIGNATION
IS83C?)1
O LORD, my God, do Thou this prayer receive,
As I submit me to Thy Holy Will; And, while my soul to this sad earth shall cleave,
0 grant me power to yield in patience still !
1 This poem and the one that follows it were composed during lyiary's imprisonment in England. They are both written on the same sheet of paper, which may be seen in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Mary Stuart, Arch. F. c. 8, No. 22). The document is undated, and the only reason for supposing that it may have been written in 1583 is that the second poem is addressed to Ronsard, and we know that Mary was in correspondence with him in the spring of that year. Miss Strickland (" Lives of the Queens of Scotland," vol. vii, p. 320), says : " Mary received at this dark epoch of her life a tribute of disinterested homage and respect from one who had enjoyed her patronage and sung her praise in the golden season of her prosperity. Pierre Ronsard, her old master in French poetry and elocution, laid the last laurel-wreath entwined by his elegant genius at her feet in her English prison, by dedicating the beautiful volume of poems he published in the year 1583 to her. . . . Still a queen in her munificence, Mary spared from her scanty means to send Ronsard a truly royal acknowledgment in return for a compli- ment which she possessed a mind to appreciate. Her present was a casket containing 2000 crowns, and a silver vase, with the device of Pegasus drinking at the fountain of Castaly, with this inscription: 1A Ronsard — L? Apollo ct la source des Muses'" The poem to Ronsard has been published by Mr. Sharman, but the first on the paper, on the subject of resignation, is printed now, I believe, for the first time, though Hosack has published
K
130 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Alas! I sink, and in my weakness fail,
If Thou Thy loving strength do not impart, —
Strength before which the bonds of sin shall quail, Leaving Thee ruler of this weeping heart.
Ah, make my soul Thy constant dwelling-place: — Ever through love and hatred, good and ill,
Through care and sorrow, through life's perilous race, Faith and Thy Holy love be with me still!
Give me, dear Lord, the true humility,
And strengthen my too feeble, halting faith ;
Let but Thy Spirit shed His light on me, — Checking my fever with His purer breath.
Give me the power to meet my fate in love, In constancy and hope, whate'er it be.
And let me draw sweet comfort from above, Despising earth's vain pomp and subtlety.
Deliver me from error, vice and pride,
And prove me, Lord, with sorrow's direst scourge. Lo! through the ills Thy justice doth provide,
My heart's vain longings Thou shalt wholly purge!
a photograph of it in the second edition of his " Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers." The original French will be found in Appendix IV.
SONNET TO RONSARD 131
SONNET TO RONSARD
I583C?)1
RONSARD! Perchance a passing note of pain Speaks sometimes to thy heart of days gone by,
When he who was thy king did not disdain To do thee honour for thy poesy.
Since pride and hate he knew not, I will claim The title of good prince to grace his name.
Ah ! write not of his fame and grandeur now, — Frail offspring these, that will be dead to-morrow;
Lay thou a nobler laurel on his brow :
That he would fain have heated grief and sorrow!
1 From the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Mary Queen of Scots, Arch. F. c. 8, No. 22b.) See note to pre- ceding poem.
132 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
ESSAY ON THE SCIENCE OF GOVERN- MENT1
{Proposition^ A king should be governed by the advice of his nobility.
Queen Mary's reply. In the event of that advice being neither corrupt nor indiscreet, but well con- sidered.
1 The original of this essay, which is written in the form of a dialogue, is among the MSS. in the Cotton Collection, C. ix, fol. 457b, according to Labanoff, who prints it in his "Recueil," stating that it is in the handwriting of Mary's secretary, Nau, and it was very probably the outcome of an argument between himself and his royal mistress, who, it will be observed, defends the divine right of kings with animation and a good deal of plausibility. The paper is endorsed " out of a wast paper of the Queen of Scotts owne hande" but the original has, no doubt, long since perished. Labanoff dates it 1566, about the time of the Rizzio episode, to which it seems to refer, but it seems on the whole more probable that it was written during her captivity, and that the sentiments it expresses are the fruit of long and earnest retrospective thought. During the tedious hours of her captivity, how often must the past, with all its shocks and vivid contrasts, its lights and shades, its desperate chances, its irremediable mistakes, have risen before her mind, and to one of her ardent temperament— gifted, too, with the feverish love of composition — writing, always a favourite pursuit in happier days, must have become an absolute necessity. Perhaps, as her pen flew swiftly over the paper, discharging some of the aching pain from her tortured heart, she was thinking of posterity rather than of her own generation. In many letters she appeals to "Time, the Father of Truth," as her best advocate, and no doubt the paper
ON THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT 133
Argument. The nobility represent an antique testi- mony to virtuous ancestry, whose privileges are re- tained by inheritance from their progenitors. They will be better and more generously educated and trained [than the commonalty], having more experi- ence, more honour, and more to lose than others.
The Queeris reply. I reply and answer still, that what ought to be is not always the case, and there is no rule so general as not to suffer an exception, — such, in fact as that those in high places should always have noble characters. What? they are traitors, and yet should be free and smiled upon? What? they are wicked, partial towards their own families, foolhardy, seeking to increase their possessions, — haughty, be- sides, on account of their long descent, which they make a pretext to cover and excuse all their actions? — Yet, on this ground of the greatness and nobility of their ancestors, the authority of kings is to be in- fringed and diminished, while their own is exempt from interference?
The one power comes from God: the other, from the king, under God. For God has chosen kings and commanded the people to obey them, and kings have appointed and constituted princes and nobles to assist them in their labours, and not to dictate to them.
What, then, ought the king to do, if his father have ennobled a worthy man, or his ancestor, whose children
before us was intended to be, in a measure, a vindication of her attitude towards Rizzio. As such, it will always be read with interest and sympathy. It is impossible to affix any date to this document. The original is, of course, in French.
134 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
or successors have become degenerate? Must the king feel obliged to treat them with the same distinction, and give them the same credit — perhaps in matters with which they are unworthy to deal — because the virtue of their fathers merited such recognition? The father was valiant, wise and well-disposed: the son (resembling him only in being inheritor of the family estates) has learnt nothing but to put on airs,1 lead an easy life, dictate and show contempt towards the king and the laws. If, then, the king find a man of low degree, poor in this world's goods, but of a gen- erous heart and fitted for the service he requires, may he not venture to place him in authority, because the nobles, who already possess so much, desire to possess still more?
1 faire le grand.
~
n f/f r-, (
A POEM ON LIFE, BY MARY STUART From the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford
[To face p. 134
A POEM ON LIFE 135
A POEM ON LIFE I586C?)1
ALAS! what am I? What my life become?
A corse existing when the pulse has fled ;
An empty shadow, mark for conflicts dread, Whose only hope of refuge is the tomb!
Cease to pursue, O friends, with envious hate, My share of this world's glories hath been brief.
Soon will your ire on me be satiate, For I consume and die of mortal grief.
And ye, my faithful friends, who hold me dear, In dire adversity and bonds and woe, —
I lack the power to guerdon love sincere; Wish, then, the close of all my ills below, That, purified on earth, with sins forgiven, My ransomed soul may share the joys of heaven.
1 The original MS. of this poem is in the Bodleian Library, (Mary Queen of Scots, Arch. F. c. 8, No. 24). Miss Strickland states, on what authority I am not quite certain, that it was found among Mary's papers seized at Chartley in August, 1586. Sharman and Miss Benger state that the poem was composed at Fotheringhay, but this, I think, must have been a theory founded on the tone of despair in the lines themselves. At all events, Miss Strickland's opinion would carry more weight. The above translation is hers. For the original French, see Appendix IV.
136 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
POEM COMPOSED ON THE MORNING OF HER EXECUTION FEB. 8,
MY Lord and my God, I have hoped in Thee;
0 Jesu, sweet Saviour, now liberate me!
1 have languished for Thee in afflictions and chains, Through long years of anguish and bodily pains. Adoring, imploring, on humbly bowed knee,
I crave of Thy mercy to liberate me !
1 Mr. Sharman has included this poem in his collection, and Chalmers, Miss Benger, Bell, and Miss Strickland, have all accepted it without question as a genuine original. Robertson, in his " Inventaires de la Royne Descosse," says that there does not appear to be " any sufficient authority for ascribing to her the Latin lines beginning, * O Domine Deus, speravi in te.} " I have not been able to trace the poem to its earliest source. The editor of Walpole's " Royal Authors " refers to it, quoting Seward and Andrews. Seward's "Anecdotes of Some Distinguished Persons," was published in London, 1795. The Andrews referred to is the continuator of Henry's " History of England," whose two supplementary volumes were published in 1796. Neither of these writers give their authority. The above is Miss Strick- land's translation from the original Latin, which will be found in Appendix IV.
SAYINGS OF MARY STUART 137
VARIOUS SAYINGS OF MARY STUART
(Reported by Contemporaries ', or quoted from her own letters)
" GOD commandeth subjects to be obedient to their princes, and commandeth princes to read His law and govern themselves thereby, and the people com- mitted to their charges." *
"The religion which I profess, I take to be most acceptable to God, and neither do I know, nor desire to know, any other. Constancy becometh all folk well, but none better than princes and such as have rule over realms, and specially in matters of religion. I have been brought up in this religion, and who might credit me in anything if I should show myself light in this case?"2
" I am none of those that will change my religion every year. ... I mean to constrain none of my sub- jects, but could wish they were all as I am." 3
" Farewell to France! . . . This is the hour in which you must fade from my sight, my beloved France, since the dark night is jealous of my happiness in gazing upon your shores as long as I can, and lets fall a black veil before my eyes, to deprive me of so
1 Throckmorton to Elizabeth, 23rd June, 1561.
2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.
138 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
much joy. Farewell, then, beloved France! I shall never see thee more. ... It is finished! Farewell, France! I believe I shall nevermore behold thee! " l
" It is fitter for none to live in peace, than for
" I have a soul, and I would not endanger it for the sake of all the grandeur in the world." 3
" I see now that the world is not that that we do make of it, nor yet are they most happy that continue longest in it!"4
"How much better were it that we two, being queens, so near of kin, neighbours, and living in one isle, should be friends and live together like sisters, than by strange means divide ourselves to the hurt of us both, and to say that we may for all that live as friends ! We may say and promise what we will, but it will pass both our powers ! " 5
" Why may it not be between my sister and me, that we, living in peace and assured friendship, may give our minds that some as notable things may be wrought by us women, as by our predecessors have been before? Let us seek this honour against some
1 Brantome's " Vies des Dames Illustres."
2 Randolph to Elizabeth, 8th October, 1561.
3 Brantome.
4 Randolph to Cecil, ist April, 1563.
5 Randolph to Elizabeth, $th February, 1564-5.
SAYINGS OF MARY STUART 139
other, [rather] than fall at debate amongst our- selves." l
" I cannot stain my hands with the blood of my subjects." 2
"Would you that I should make merchandise of my religion? It cannot be so." 3
" He who is not content with moderate fortune, is often reduced to poverty and to obscurity, while aim- ing at too high a destiny." 4
" Speak not to me of the wisdom of women ; I know my own sex well ; the wisest among us all is only a little less foolish than the rest ! " 5
" There is no recipe against fear." 6
1 Randolph to Elizabeth, $th February, 1564-5.
2 Mary's reply to the Catholic Bishop of Dunblane, who in 1 565 urged her to severe measures against the Protestants. See " Report on the state of Scotland," sent by the Jesuit priests to Pope Clement VIII, in Appendix I to Nau's " Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots." The sentence in the original is in the third person.
3 Strickland, quoting a letter of Randolph's i6th July, 1565.
4 Bishop Leslie's narrative, in Forbes-Leith's " Narratives of Scottish Catholics."
5 Seward's "Anecdotes of Some Distinguished Persons," (London, 1795.) I have not been able to discover the source from which Seward quotes this speech, which he gives in the original French, and which he says was addressed by Mary to " one of the Cecil family, Minister to Scotland from England in Mary's reign," who had spoken to her of " the wisdom of his Sovereign Queen Elizabeth."
6 Thomas Crawford's confession. See Hosack, Henderson, and Lang.
140 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
" I would rather hear of the evil which I have not done, than do the evil of which nothing is heard." l
" This is a true maxim, ' he who does not keep faith where it is due will hardly keep it where it is not due.'"2
" There is extant no law which permits anyone to be condemned without his cause having been heard, if it touches but the welfare of the least of my sub- jects."3
" Alas! . . . When did you ever hear a prince cen- sured for listening in person to the supplications of those who complain that they have been falsely ac- cused?"4
" The remedy of a bad cause is to close the mouth of the defence."5
" A worm of the earth will turn when trampled upon ; how much more difficult is it for a royal heart to endure the persecutions you inflict upon it! " 6
"Gain the heart, and there is nothing that shall not be yours and at your devotion." 7
1 Mary's speech to Murray at Lochleven, as recorded by Claude Nau. Nau gives the speech in the third person : " She would rather, etc."
2 Nau's " Memoirs."
3 Sentence in Mary's letter to Murray written from Lochleven in 1567, described and summarized by Nau in his " Memoirs."
4 Mary to Elizabeth, isth June, 1568.
5 Ibid. 6 Mary to Elizabeth, 2ist June, 1568. 7 Mary to Elizabeth, 5th July, 1 568.
SAYINGS OF MARY STUART 141
"If Caesar had not disdained to hear or to read the complaint of a supplicant, he had not so died." 1
" As a vessel agitated by every wind, so am I, not knowing where to find a port, unless, taking into merciful consideration my long voyage, you will wel- come me into a sure haven ! " 2
" I am deliberately resolved rather to die than re- sign my crown ; and the last words that I shall utter in my life, will be the words of a Queen of Scot- land!"3
" My long adversities have taught me to hope for consolation for all my sorrows in a better life." 4
" This [dissimulation] is, they say, a monster com- mon enough near persons of our rank, when, misled by some far-fetched appearances, we are not on our guard against him." 5
" The vilest criminals now in your prisons, born under your authority, are admitted to their justifica- tion, and their accusers and accusations are always made known to them. Why should not the same privilege be extended to me, a sovereign queen, your nearest relative and legitimate heir? " 6
Mary to Elizabeth, 5th July, 1568. Mary to Elizabeth, ist September, 1568. Mary's instructions to her Commissioners, Qth January, 1568-9.
Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, 2oth February, 1575. Mary to the Cardinal de Guise, 3ist January, 1578. Mary to Elizabeth, 8th November, 1 582.
142 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
" I protest to you, upon my honour, that I await to-day no other kingdom than that of my God, whom I see preparing for me the best end of all my afflic- tions and adversities." l
" You will never bind my heart to you so fast as by kindness, though you keep my poor suffering body for ever within four walls ! " 2
" There is nothing left me but the soul, which it is not in your power to make captive. Give it, then, room to aspire more freely after its salvation, which it now seeks rather than any grandeur of this world." 3
" An evil conscience can never rest in peace, for it carries its fear and its greatest trouble within itself." 4
" For all this, my heart shall not fail me, since I live in the hope that He who has called me into being and to the station which I occupy, will give me grace to die in His quarrel, which is the only honour I desire in this world, that I may by this means obtain the mercy of God in the next." 6
" I will not prejudice my rank and state, nor the blood whereof I am descended, nor the son who is to follow me; nor will I give so prejudicial a precedent to foreign princes, as to come and answer according to the effect of those letters [that is, to stand her
1 Mary to Elizabeth, 8th November, 1582.
2 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Mary to the Due de Guise, September, 1586.
SAYINGS OF MARY STUART 143
trial}\ for my heart is great, and will not yield to any affliction." 1
" I am no subject, and I would rather die a thou- sand deaths than acknowledge myself to be one." 2
" Remember, that the spacious theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England ! " 3
"Notwithstanding that I wish the Catholics wel- fare, yet I desire not the procurement thereof by the slaughter or blood of anyone. I had rather play the part of Esther than Judith, rather make intercession to God for the people, than take away the lives of the meanest!"4
" You, whom I hold most dear in the world, I bid you farewell, being on the point of suffering death by an unjust judgment, — such a one as never any of our race has yet endured, much less one of my rank. . . . But though executioner never yet dipped his hand in our blood, be not ashamed thereof, my friend ! " 8
1 Premiere rtponse de Marie Stuart aux commissaires d* Elizabeth, in Labanoffs " Recueil," vol. vii, p. 36. This pre- liminary examination of Mary took place on I2th October, 1586.
a Camden's "Annals of Elizabeth" (London, 1625). The sentence in Camden is in the third person : " She was no sub- ject, etc."
3 Ibid. The actual words in Camden are : " she warned them to . . . ' remember that the spacious theatre of the world was more than the realm of England.' "
4 Camden. The original is in the third person.
5 Mary to the Due de Guise, 24th November, 1586.
144 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
"Farewell, for the last time! Be mindful of the soul and the honour of her who has been your queen, mistress and good friend," l
" I am resolved to fortify myself in Christ Jesu alone, who never fails in giving justice and consola- tion to those who, in the midst of tribulation, invoke Him with a faithful heart." 2
" Allow, at least, free sepulchre to this body when the soul shall be separated from it, — they who never could obtain, while united, liberty to dwell in peace! " 8
" I will not accuse any person, but sincerely pardon everyone, as I desire others and, above all, God, to pardon me."4
" Accuse me not of presumption, if, in leaving this world and preparing myself for a better, I remind you that you will one day have to give an account of your charge, in like manner as those who have preceded you in it, and that my blood and the misery of my country will be remembered; — wherefore, from the first dawn of our comprehension, we ought to dispose our minds to make things temporal yield to those of Eternity." 5
" I never thought that my sister, the Queen of England, would have consented to my death, seeing
1 Mary to Archbishop Beton, 24th November, 1586.
a Mary to Elizabeth, igih December, 1586.
3 Ibid. 4 Ibid, 5 Ibid.
SAYINGS OF MARY STUART 145
I am not subject to your law: but since her pleasure is such, death to me shall be most welcome. And surely that soul were not worthy the eternal joys of Heaven whose body cannot endure one stroke of the headsman ! " l
" Those fear death, who have in life pursued what is vain and uncertain, — not those who have intrepidly followed the path which Christ has trod." 2
" Weep not, Melville, my good and faithful servant. Thou shouldst rather rejoice that thou shalt now see the end of the long troubles of Mary Stuart. Know, Melville, that this world is but vanity, and full of sorrows. I am Catholic, thou Protestant : but as there is one Christ, I charge thee in His name, bear witness that I die firm to my religion, a true Scotchwoman, and true to France." 3
" As Thine arms, O Lord Jesu Christ, were spread forth upon the Cross, so receive me into the same arms of Thy mercy, and pardon me my trespasses ! "
" In manus Tuas, Domine> commendo spiritum meum ! "
1 Camden.
* " Vita Mariae Stuartae," by Conaeus, in Jebb.
3 Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of Scotland." Many contemporary writers give Mary's last speech to Melville with slight variations. I understand Miss Strickland to quote from an unpublished document in the Vatican collection.
4 Camden.
5 " Mort de la Royne d'Escosse," in Jebb.
APPENDICES APPENDIX I
THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY
THE nucleus of the library of the British Museum may be said to have been formed in 1700, when the Cotton Library was presented to the nation by Sir John Cotton (nephew of the original collector). To this invaluable collection of books and MSS. were added in 1753 the Sloane and Har- leian libraries, purchased by the government of the day under a special act of parliament. In 1757 the royal library of the kings of England was presented by George II — a fact that deserves to be remembered to his credit — and from that year date both the occupation by the library of its present quarters — or rather, of its present site — and its privilege of obtaining a copy of every publication entered at Stationers' Hall. Since then, various purchases and be- quests have further enriched the collection, till it has become one of the two most important and comprehensive in the world. Readers who study in the library to-day and profit luxuriously by the convenient system which places before them, at their simple request, and with tolerable prompti- tude, any book or manuscript they may wish to consult, may well spare a sympathetic thought to the pioneers in his- torical research who, two centuries back, pursued the same work under considerable difficulties. In those days the papers now so carefully united were widely scattered among
148 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
private collections. Burnet, when engaged upon the first volume of his "History of the Reformation," was most anxious to avail himself of the very necessary and invaluable manuscripts accumulated by Sir Robert Cotton, and then still in the custody of his nephew. Accordingly, he ap- proached Sir John through a mutual friend, but met with a chilling rebuff. " A great prelate had been beforehand with us," he writes, "and had possessed him with such pre- judices against me that he said, as he was prepared, that un- less the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Secretary of State would recommend me as a person fit to have access to his library, he desired to be excused." This incivility was due to religious and political prejudices, but Sir John seems to have met other advances in a suspicious spirit, for Evelyn, commenting in 1689 on the dearth of available libraries in London, remarks: "Sir John Cotton's, collected by his noble uncle, is without dispute the most valuable in MSS. ; but he refuses to impart to us the Catalogue of his treasure, for fear, he tells me, of being disturbed."
Burnet, being thus, as he says, " at a full stop," remedied the situation by means not very justifiable according to modern notions. "Accidentally meeting with Sir John Marsham the younger, I told him how I was denied access to the Cotton Library; but he told me he was by marriage a nephew to the family, and that for many years he had free access to it, and he might carry with him whom he pleased. So I, with a copier, went thither under his protection; and we were hard at work from morning to night for ten days ; but then the owner, with his family, coming to town, I could go no further."
Sir John Cotton, becoming at a later date better informed as to the character and abilities of Burnet, expressed his regret for his own ungracious behaviour, and placed his library at the historian's disposal, so that when Burnet's third
APPENDIX I 149
volume appeared, in 17 14, thirty-three years after the publica- tion of the first, he had the satisfaction (along with the inconvenience of going over some old ground again) of knowing that he had .studied all the available authorities for his period.
APPENDIX II
MARY'S LOVE OF READING, AND THE COUPLETS COMPOSED BY HER
MARY was a diligent reader. In 1562, when she was just twenty, we find Randolph writing to Cecil that " she reads daily after dinner \that is, the mid-day meal\ instructed by a learned man, Mr. George Buchanan, somewhat of Livy." Sir James Melville told Elizabeth that "when she had leisure from the affairs of her country, she read in good books the histories of divers countries," and Caussin, in his "Histoire de 1'Incomparable Marie Stuart," tells us that " as she was a learned princess, who had been brought up in France from her fifth year, and had always loved letters — speaking six languages with ease — she used to cultivate her mind with profitable reading, which softened the vexa- tions of her captivity." In England her literary tastes seem to have given offence to at least one of her jailors, for Sir Amias Paulet complains bitterly of the difficulty of transporting the captive queen from one prison to an- other, owing to " the quantity of baggage the said Queen and her attendants have in apparel, books and the like trash!"
Mary used to read the " Chronicles of England " during her captivity, and remarked to Paulet that " the histories made mention that this realm is used to blood." She loved poetry above everything, as Brantome tells us, and M. Dar- gaud has recorded for us the interesting fact of his discovery
150
APPENDIX II 151
at Edinburgh (where, precisely, he does not say) of two poems of Joachim du Bellay in manuscript, copied out in Mary's own hand. Mr. Sharman claims for Mary Stuart the honour of being the first book-collector among the monarchs of Scotland. Until her advent, there seem not to have ex- isted even the vestiges of a royal library. " She bequeathed all her Latin and Greek books," says Mr. Sharman, " to the University of St. Andrews, with the express intention of founding its library. It was evidently well within the know- ledge of the royal giver that that seat of learning was en- tirely destitute of the visible appliances and aids of litera- ture. The rest of her books she leaves to Mary Beton . . . who must therefore be supposed to have been recognized as the scholar of the household" ("The Library of Mary Queen of Scots," by Julian Sharman). No review of Mary's compositions would be quite complete without some allusion to the couplets which are said to have been composed by her at various dates. Miss Strickland relates that Lord Seton, the premier baron of Scotland, having refused an earldom at Mary's hands, she " conferred a higher honour on him by writing an extempore couplet in Latin and in French, which may be thus rendered in English rhyme:
c Though earls and dukes and even kings there be, Yet Seton's noble lord sufficeth me.'"
In a note, Miss Strickland gives the Latin :
"Sunt comites ducesque denique reges, Setoni dominum sit satis mihi."
I do not know whether the French is extant, or where we might expect to find it.
Another Latin couplet was composed by Mary in honour of Buxton, the last time she was there, being inscribed by her " with the point of a diamond on a pane of glass in the
152 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
window of her bedchamber in the Old Hall . . ., in imita- tion of Caesar's verses on Feltria :
' Buxtona, quse tepidse celebrabere numine lymphse Buxtona, forte iterum non adeunda, vale ! ' " l
Miss Strickland gives a translation by Archdeacon Bon- ney, as follows:
" Buxton, whose tepid fountain's power, far-famed, can health restore, Buxton, farewell! I go — perchance to visit thee no more."
" This specimen of Mary Stuart's classical learning and genius," continues Miss Strickland, " was unfortunately de- stroyed about the middle of the last \that is, the eighteenth^ century, in an ill-judged attempt of the then Countess- Dowager of Burlington to possess herself of the brittle tablet on which it was inscribed by the poet-Queen."
Miss Strickland, to whose careful research no student who wishes to view Mary Stuart from the personal side, can sufficiently express his or her obligations, says also: "When old Fuller the historian visited Fotheringhay Castle, he ob- served the following couplet from an old ballad written with the point of a diamond in one of the windows, in Mary Stuart's well-known characters :
' From the top of all my trust, Mishap hath laid me in the dust.'"
From Derby the photograph has been sent me of a pane of glass, said to have once belonged to a lattice window in Heage Hall, and on which is written, apparently in Mary's
hand:
" Trop heureux en toi, Malheureux en moi."
1 A copy of these lines, with variations, is among the Sloane MSS. , Lat. 1252, f. 3. Walpole has printed them in his "Royal and Noble Authors."
APPENDIX II 153
In H. T. Wake's monthly catalogue of books, which reached me at the same time, the following information may be found : " Heage Hall, the moated residence of the Poles, lies within a mile of the park boundary of Wingfield Manor House, where Queen Mary was confined in 1569, 1584, etc. Dr. Cox doubts its authenticity \that of the writing on the pane\ as she would not be permitted to leave the precincts of the Manor House, being, he says, under strict guard, day and night. Some deny on other grounds, whilst others are satisfied that the inscription on the pane is by Mary Queen of Scots."
The characters certainly resemble Mary's, although one cannot help asking: Why the masculine form of " heureux " and " malheureiix "? *
Among Mary's compositions, we ought certainly to notice the Latin mottoes composed and embroidered by her on the cover of a bed, which she is said to have worked during her imprisonment. These mottoes are enumerated and the work described in a letter from Sir William Drummond, of Hawthornden, to Ben Jonson, which will be found printed in full in the 1711 edition of Drummond's works. The same bed seems to be described in a document in the State Paper Office (Mary Queen of Scots, vol. xxi, 45), en- titled, " Devises du lict de la Royne." The bed-cover itself, Mr. Lang tells us, was, at the time of Drummond's descrip- tion (1617), "at Pinkie House, near Musselburgh, the property of the House of Douglas."
1 So I certainly read it from the photograph, but Mr. Wake, in whose possession is the original window-frame with the pane, reads it " heur- euse" and " malheureuse."
APPENDIX III
THE CASKET SONNETS
WITH regard to the Casket Sonnets, which I have not in- cluded in this collection, as their authenticity is still an un- solved problem, I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with Mr. Andrew Lang, that as evidence they are far more serious and less open to suspicion than the Casket letters. Like other students of the controversy, I have read them many times and with great care, and if impressions thus formed are of any value, I must admit that I do not feel the same conviction that the Mary-Stuart touch is absent as I do in the case of most of the letters. Though below her ordinary level, the sonnets are not without a certain grace. The metre is the same as in many of her authentic poems, and, what is perhaps of more significance, the spelling in the contemporary copy published by Mr. Lang in his "Mystery of Mary Stuart," seems to follow Mary's usual method. The i instead of /, the u instead of v in the centre of words (as auancer, auecques, suture, etc.), which Father Pollen notices to be so characteristic, and then the play on the word sujet (" Man pais, mcs subiects^ mon ame assub- tectie") all this, though by no means conclusive, may seem to make the theory of forgery less possible — or at least to imply that the sonnets are the work of a French rather than a Scottish forger. Skelton allows the probability of the son- nets being genuine, and if they prove anything, they prove that at one time in her life — apparently after the 2ist of
154
APPENDIX III 155
April, 1567 — Mary did fall under the influence of a fatal affection for the man who had ruined her: a neutral theory which leaves untouched the murder question, and which (setting aside the exaggerations and misstatements of her political enemies) is rather implied, I think, in the memoirs of her old friend, Sir James Melville, and in the extracts of contemporary Catholic opinion quoted by Father Pollen in his " Papal Negotiations under Queen Mary." On the other hand, it is worth while to consider some remarks of Mr. Lang in his " History of Scotland " (vol. ii, Appendix A) : " As to the Sonnets, it is not easy to guess when, if genuine, they were written. To an English reader, their passion ap- pears overpoweringly natural and unfeigned,1 and their in- artificial laxity and roughness may be the result of rapid and excited composition. On the other hand, a French critic, Monsieur de Wyzeva, avers that to a French ear, the " tone " is not French, and that both sonnets and letters are the work of a person who thinks in English (or Scots); also that this " tone " is not that of Mary's genuine writings in the French language. These are impressions which a foreigner cannot criticise."
It is impossible to resist the temptation to say a few words here on the subject of the Casket Letters. Although Mr. Henderson is generally supposed to have spoken the last word on this matter, I cannot help feeling that Mary's defen- ders need not yet despair. Anyone conversant with Mary's authentic letters, must feel that Letter II could never have been written by her as it stands. One of her French defen- ders has indignantly declared that she was incapable of a. crime litteraire^ such as is Letter II. The coarseness and vulgarity
1 Though Sir John Skelton has gathered a different impression: " the woman who wrote them was playing with love. The poetical language of a soul ablaze with passion would have been very different." (" Maitland of Lethington," vol. ii, p. 336.)
156 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
of expression and sentiment would have been impossible to a woman of her mental attainments, although there are passages in the letter which may have been drawn from original manuscripts or memoranda belonging to Mary. The discovery at Hatfield of original French versions of Letters III and V (following Mr. Lang's numbering) has been held up before us as a fact that strikes away the base of our most cherished arguments. I think, on the contrary, it has if anything strengthened our position. Letter III she may have written, though there is no possibility of deciding its date or the identity of the person for whom it was in- tended. It refers to subjects of which we know nothing. It touches on matters real and vital, perhaps at the moment, and which had a meaning for the writer and the recipient, but which for us have none. Letter V is different. It is distinctly compromising, and its form and tone differ abso- lutely not only from Mary's authentic letters, but from its companion, Letter III. Sir John Skelton has drawn atten- tion to the difference in style between the so-called French originals, and I think I am right in saying that he has not been adequately answered. Let us take the opening lines of Letter V — " Monsieur ^ helas pourquoy est votre fiance mise en personne si indigne, pour soupfonner ce qui est entierement vostrel" Is it only imagination, or does one not detect a distinctly English form in this sentence? Surely anyone to whom French was a native language would have written: "Monsieur, votre fiance pourquoy est-elle mise" etc.? And then the ending, "& qui est entierement vostre?" I will not venture to suggest an amendment, but surely this is not good French? Through the whole letter, the sentences are abrupt and awkward, and altogether unlike Mary's usual fluent style. Letter V seems to me to be the most instructive of the series, and the most important, until such time as an original French version of Letter II
APPENDIX III 157
may be discovered. In the meantime I am decidedly of opinion that the discovery of the French version of Letter V has rather strengthened than weakened the defence. Read- ing the Casket Letters carefully through does one not almost know which sentences might conceivably have been written by Mary, and which it is preposterous to suppose could ever have been originated by her? Where the problem ceases to concern itself with what Mary actually did, and commences rather to deal with what she would have been likely to do — where, in a word, the question becomes psychological and ceases to be circumstantial — there I claim it as a woman's problem, and will maintain that the best-in- formed masculine opinion in the world is not of much value on such a point. When some day the French original of Letter II lies before us, and when (as I believe) the forgery is thereby made manifest beyond a doubt — when our battle is won, and our faith in Mary justified — how strangely will read the insinuations of Mr. Lang, the (almost preferable) certainties of Mr. Henderson, and the really astounding assumptions of Major Martin Hume !
APPENDIX IV
MARY'S POEMS IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH
QUATRAIN WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF PRAYERS
I559-1
Si ce lieu est pour ecrire ordonne
Ce qu'il vous plait avoir en sovenance,
Je vous requiers que lieu mi soit donne Et que nul temps m'en oste 1'ordonance. ROYNE DE FRANCE, MARIE.
VERSES ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS II 1560."
EN mon triste et doux chant,
D'un ton fort lamentable, Je jette un ceil tranchant,
De perte incomparable,
Et en soupirs cuisans,
Passe mes meilleurs ans.
1 The book in which these lines are written belonged to Mary's aunt, Anne of Lorraine, Duchesse d'Aerschot. See Pawlowski's " Poesies Fran9aises de Marie Stuart," in " Le Livre," for 1883.
2 From Brant6me's "Vies des Dames Illustres," Leyden, 1665. Printed also in Jebb's " De Vita et Rebus Gestis Mariae Scotorum Reginae," London, 1725.
I58
APPENDIX IV 159
Fut-il un tel mal-heur,
De dure destine*e, Ny si triste douleur
De Dame fortune'e
Qui mon cceur et mon ceil
Vois en bierre et cerciieil.
Qui en mon doux printemps,
Et fleur de ma jeunesse, Toutes les peines sens,
D'une extreme 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.
I'ay au coeur et a Fceil,
Un portrait et image, Qui figure mon deiiil,
Et mon pasle visage,
De violettes teint,
Qui est 1'amoureux teint.
Pour mon mal estranger,
Je ne m'arreste en place, Mais j'en ay eu beau changer,
Si ma douleur j'efface ;
Car mon pis et mon mieux,
Sont mes plus deserts lieux.
160 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Si en quelque sejour, Soit en Bois ou en Free ;
Soit pour 1'aube du jour, Ou soit pour la vespree, Sans cesse mon coeur sent Le regret d'un absent.
Si par fois vers ces lieux, Viens a dresser ma veue,
Le doux trait de ses yeux, Je vois en une nue, Soudain je vois en 1'eau, Comme dans un Tombeau.
Si je suis en repos,
Sommeillant sur ma couche, Toy qu'il me tient propos,
le le sens qu'il me touche, En labeur, en recoy,
Tousiours est prest de moy.
le ne vois autre objet,
Pour beau qu'il se presente,
A qui que soit subjet
Oncques mon cceur 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.
APPENDIX IV 161
"ADAMAS LOQUITUR"
(THE DIAMOND SPEAKS) l
1562
NON quin duritie superem serrumque focumque,
Sculpta, nee artificis glorior ipsamanu, Nee quia gemma nitens operoso cingar ab auro
Pura quidem, et Phoebi sidere candidior: Sedpotius cordi similis mea forma, quod ipsum
Cor Dominae, excepta duritie, exhibeat. Nam quod ab oppositis non vincitur et sine noeuis
Candida quod tota est, his ego, et ilia, pareis. Credere quis possit ? postquam me emiserat ilia
Mi Dominam rursus posse placere nouam? Sed placet : hoc faustae foelix en debeo forti,
Me Regina iterum, nee minor ista, tenet. O utinam ambarum bene possem adamantina vincla,
(Ore fauete omnes) cordibus injucere. Quae neque liuor edax, neque falsis acta susurris
Suspicio, aut caries temporis ulla, terant. Tune ego ab Eois dicar celeberrima gazis,
Hie etiam gemmas vincere praecipuas. Tune ego perstringam tremulo fulgore coruscans,
Adstantum, immissis lumina seu radus. Tune ego seu pretio, seu quae me provocet arte,
Gemma, adamas firmo robore prima ferar.
1 From Sir Thomas Chaloner's collection of Latin poems, published in London, 1579, under the title of " De Rep. Anglorum Instauranda." Chaloner states that the poem was originally written by Mary in French, of which his version is a translation. Conaeus has also given us a Latin version of the same poem, in his " Vita Mariae Stuartae," published in Rome, 1624. See Jebb's " De Vita et Rebus Gestis Mariae," vol. ii, pp. 23, 24. Conaeus gives us Buchanan's version, which he says was composed by " one who was a better scholar than he was a Christian." See Appendix V.
M
162 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
SONNET TO ELIZABETH 1568 (P)1
UNG seul penser qui me profficte et nuit Amer et doulx change en mon cceur sans cesse, Entre le doubte et Fespoir il m'oppresse
Tant que la paix et le repos me fuit.
Done, chere sceur, si ceste carte suit L'affection de uous ueoir qui me presse
C'est que ie uiz en peine et en tristesse Si promtement leffect ne s'en ensuit.
Jay ueu la nef relascher par contraincte En haulte mer, proche d'entrer au port,
Et le serain se conuertir en trouble. Ainsi ie suis en soucy et en craincte Non pas de uous, may quantes fois a tort
Fortune rompt voille et cordage double.
(The same in Italian.} IL pensier che mi nuoce insieme et gioua Amaro e dolce al mio cor cangia spesso E fra tema e speranza lo tien si oppresso Che la quiette pace unque non trouua.
Perb se questa carta a uoi renuoua II bel disio di uederui in me impresso Cio fa il grand' affanno ch' me se stesso
Ha, non puotendo homai da se far proua.
1 From the original document in the Cotton Collection, Caliguh B.V., fol. 316.
APPENDIX IV 163
Ho veduto talhor vicino al porto Respinger naue in contrario uento
E nel maggior seren' turbarsi il Cielo Cosi sorella chara temo e pauento Non gia per uoi, ma quanto volte a torta
Rompe fortuna un ben' ordito uello.
MEDITATIONS
LORSQU'IL conuient a chacun reposer, Et pour un temps tout soucy deposer, Ung souvenir de mon amere vie Me vient oster de tout dormir 1'enuie, Representant a mes yeux viuement, De bien en mal un soudain changement, Qui distiller me fait lors sur la face La triste humeur, qui tout plaisir efface: Done tost apres, cerchant de m'alleger, I'entre en discours, non friuole ou legier, Considerant du monde Pinconstance, Et des mortels le trop peu d'asseurance: lugeant par la rien n'estre permanent, Ny bien, ny mal, dessous le firmament. Ce que soudain me met en souuenance Des sages diets du Roy, plein de prudence. Fay (ce dit il) cerche' tous les plaisirs, Qui peuuent plus assouuir mes desirs : Mais je n'ay veu en ceste masse ronde Que vanitd, dont fol est qui s'y fonde.
1 Published by Bishop Leslie in his " Piae Afflicti Animi Consola- tiones," Paris, 1574.
164 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
De quoy mes yeux experience ont eu
Durant noz jours : car i'ay souuent veu
Ceux qui touchoient les haults cieux de la teste,
Soudainement renversez par tempeste.
Les plus grands Roys, Monarques, Empereurs,
De leurs estats et vies ne sont seurs.
Bastir parlais, et amasser cheuance,
Retourne en brief en perte et decadence.
Estre venu des parens genereux,
N'empesche point qu'on ne soit malheureux.
Les beaux habits, le ieu, le ris, la danse,
Ne laissent d'eux que dueil et repentance :
Et la beaute", tant agreable aux yeux
Se part de nous, quand nous deuenons vieux :
Boire et manger, et viure tout a 1'aise
Reuient aussi a douleur et malaise.
Beaucoup d'amis, richesse, ny scauoir,
De contenter, qui les a, n'ont pouuoir.
Brief, tout le bien de ceste vie humaine,
Se garde peu, et s'acquiert a grand' peine.
Que nous sert done icy nous amuser
Aux vanitez, qui ne font qu'abuser?
II fault cercher en bien plus haulte place
Le vray repos, le plaisir et la grace.
Qui promise est a ceux, qui de bon cceur
Retourneront a Tunique Sauueur :
Car au ciel est nostre aeternal partage,
la ordonnd pour nous en heritage.
Mais qui pourra, 6 pere tres humain,
Auoir cest heur, si tu n'y mets la main,
D'abandonner son pesch£ et offense,
En ayant faict condigne penitence?
Ou qui pourra ce monde despriser,
Pour seul t'aimer, honorer et priser?
APPENDIX IV 165
Nul pour certain, si ta douce clemence
Le preuenant, a tel bien ne Pauance;
Parquoy, Seigneur, et Pere souuerain,
Regarde moi de visage serain,
Dont regardas la femme pecheresse,
Qui a tes pieds pleuroit ces maux sans cesse:
Dont regardas Pierre pareillement,
Qui ja t'avoit me* par iurement :
Et comme a eux, donne moy ceste grace,
Que ta mercy tous mes peschez efface.
En retirant de ce monde mon cceur,
Fay 1'aspirer a 1'Eternel bonheur.
Donne, Seigneur, donne moy patience,
Amour et foy, et en toy esperance;
L'humilite, auec devotion
De te seruir de pure affection :
Enuoye moy ta diuine prudence,
Pour empescher que peche* ne m'offence.
lamais de moy n'eslongne verite',
Simple douceur, auecques charite*;
La chastite* et la perseuerance
Demeure en moy, auec obeissance.
De tous erreurs, Seigneur, preserue moy,
Et tous les iours, Christ, augmente la foy
Que i'ay receu de ma mere 1'Eglise,
Ou i'ay recours pour mon lieu de franchise,
Centre peschd, ignorance et orgueil,
Qui font aller au perdurable dueil.
Permets, Seigneur, que tousiours mon bon Ange
Soit pres de moy, et t'offre ma loiiange,
Mes oraisons, mes larmes et souspirs,
Et de mon coeur tous iustes desirs.
Ton sainct Esprit sur moy face demeure,
Tant que voudras qu'en ce monde ie dure.
1 66 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Et quand, Seigneur, ta clemence et bonte M'oster voudra de la captiuite, Ou mon esprit reside en ceste vie, Pleine de maux, de tourmens et d'enuie, Me souuenir donne moy le pouuoir De tes merces, et fiance y auoir, Ayant au cceur ta passion escrite, Que i'offriray au lieu de mon merite. Donques, mon Dieu, ne m'abandonne point, Et mesmement en ceste extreme poinct, A cette fin que tes voyes ie tienne, *
Et que vers toy a la fin ie paruienne.
Sa vertu m'attire.
Marie Stuuarte.1
POEM ON SACRIFICE I573-2
L'IRE de Dieu par le sang ne s'appaise . De bceufs ny boucs espandu sur 1'autel,
Ni par encens ou Sacrifice tel, Le Souuerain ne regoit aucun aise.
Qui veult, Seigneur, faire ceuure qui te plaise,
II faut qu'il ayt la foy en PImmortel,
Avec espoir, charite* au mortel, Et bien faisant que ton loz il ne taise.
1 Mary was fond of making anagrams on her own name. " Sa vertue m'attire" was one. Another was " Veritas armata," which contains all the letters of " Marie Stuarta." " Va, tu meriteras," was a third.
2 From Leslie's "Piae Consolationes."
APPENDIX IV 167
L'oblation qui t'est seul agreable,
C'est un esprit en oraison constant,
Humble et deuot, en un corps chaste estant. O Tout-puissant, sois moy si fauorable,
Que pour tousiours ces graces dans mon coeur
Puissent rester a ta gloire et honneur ! Va, tu meriteras.
POEM ADDRESSED TO THE BISHOP OF ROSS I574-1
PUISQUE Dieu a, par sa bonte imence, Permis qu'ayez obtins tant de bon heur, De despartir en credit et faveur
Hors de prison, en sayne conscience,
Remerciez sa divine clemence,
Qui de tous biens est seul cause et autheur, Et le priez d'un humble et devot cceur,
Qu'il ayt pitie de ma longue souffrance.
VERSES WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF HOURS 1579 (?)2
Qui iamais dauantage eust contraire le sort Si la vie mest moins utile que la mort
Et plustost que chager de mes maus laduenture Chacun change pour moi dhumeur et de nature
Marie R.
1 From Pawlowski's " Poesies Fran9aises de Marie Stuart," in " Le Livre " for 1883. Pawlowski quotes from a French translation of Leslie's " Piae Afflicti Animi Consolationes," published in Paris, 1593.
2 The original volume is preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. See Labanoff s " Recueil," vol. vii, p. 346-352.
1 68 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Come autres fois la renomee
Ne vole plus par lunivers Isy borne son cours divers
La chose delle plus aimee
Marie R.
Les heurs ie guide et le iour Par lordre exacte de ma carriere
Quittant mon triste seiour Pour isy croistre ma lumiere
Celle qui Ihonneur sait combler Chacun du bruit de sa louange
Ne peut moins qua soi ressembler En effet nestant qu un bel ange
II fault plus que la renomee Pour dire et publier . . . . *
Un Cceur que loutrage martire
Par un mepris ou dun refus A le pouvoir de faire dire
Je ne suis plus ce que ie fus
Si nos pensers sont esleves
Ne lestimes pas chose etrange Us meritent estre aprouver
Ayant pour obiet un bel ange
Pour recompense et pour salaire
De mon amour et de ma foie Rendez men ange tutelaire
Autant com me ie vous en doye
1 The page has been cut off at this point, and with it the last two lines of this verse.
APPENDIX IV
En feinte mes amis changent leur bienveillance ^ Tout le bien quils me font est desirer ma mort Et comme si mourant iestois en defaillance Dessus mes vestements ils ons iete le sort
II napartient porter ces armes
Qua ceux qui dun cceur indompte Come nous nont peur des allarmes
Du temps puissant mais sans bonte
Bien plus utile est Iheure que non pas la fortune Puisquelle change autant quelle est oportune
La viellesse est un mal qui ne se peut guerir Et la ieunesse un bien qui pas un ne menage
Qui fait quaussitost ne Ihomme est pres de mourir Et qui Ion croit heureux travaille davantage
STANZAS BY MARY, IN THE RECORD OFFICE.1
CELUY vraiment na poinct de courtoisie Qui en bon lieu ne montre son scavoir
Estant requis descipre en poesie
II vauldroit mieux du tout nen poinct avoir
Les Dieux, les Cieux, La mort et la haine et 1'enuie Sont sourds, ires, cruels, animes centre moy
Prier, soufrir, Pleurer, a chascun estre amye
Sont les remedes seuls qu'en tent d'ennuitz ie voy.
1 Mary Queen of Scots, vol. xii, 31. These lines are not in Mary's hand, but are attributed to her by Mr. Markham Thorpe, who compiled the Calendars for her period.
i;o QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
THREE POEMS IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD1
i O SIGNEUR DIEU resceuez ma priere
Qui est selon ta sainte voulonte
Car si il ne playt a ta grand mageste Je defandray a la demi carriere
Elas signeur ie retourne en arriere
Lasse desia si ta grande bonte
Ne renforcit ma fraile voulonte De ta vertu a franchir la barriere.
Tu veulx Signeur estre maitre du coeur Mays sans toy ie ne puts ten rendre le vaincueur Sil ne teplest par ta douce clemence. . . .2 Viens done Signeur et i fays ta demeure Pour en chasser lamour et la rancueur Le bien le mal mostant tous soing et cure
Fors seulement de parvenir a toy
Penitament et constante en ma foy
Donnes seigneur dones moy pasciance
Et renforces ma trop debile foy
Que ton esprit me conduise en ta loy Et me guardes de choir par imprudence.
Donee signeur donne moy la Constance En bien et mal et la perseverance
1 Mary Stuart, Arch. F. c. 8, Nos. 22, 22 b, and 24.
2 The manuscript is exceedingly difficult to read. The two lines in italics have been erased by Mary.
APPENDIX IV 171
Ne me priue iamays de ta sainte esperance l le mis en toy toute mon esperance
Et hors du cueur moste tout vayn esmoy
Ne permete plus et au monde ie meprise Mays tout plesir fors en toy ie refuse Deliures moy de toutes passions
Dire dereur et de tout autre vice Et prouois moy de douleur et de Justice
Dun cueur devot et bonnes actions
ii Ronsart si ton bon cueur de gentille nature
Tement pour le respect dun peu de nouriture Quen tes plus ieunes ans tu as resceu dun Roy
De ton Rooy alie et de sa mesme loy
Ie diray non couart ni tasche dauarice
Mays digne a mon aduis de nom de braue prince
Ou bien si tu as eu quelquefoys le desir* Elas nescrives pas ses fayts ni ses grandeurs Mays quil a bien voulu empesche de malheurs
in
Que suisie helas et de quoy sert ma vie len suis fors qun corps priue de cueur Un ombre vayn un obiect de malheur
Qui na plus rien que de mourir en uie
Plus ne portez O enemis danuie
A qui na plus lesprit a la grandeur
la consomme dexsessiue doulleur Vottre ire en brief ce voirra assouie
This line has been erased. a This line has been erased.
QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Et vous amys qui mauez tenu chere
Souuenez vous que sans heur sans santay
le ne scaurois auqun bon ceuvre fayre Souhaitez done fin de calamitay Et que su bas estant asses punie laye ma part en la ioye infinie l
POEM COMPOSED ON THE MORNING OF HER EXECUTION, STH FEBRUARY, 1587 2
O DOMINE DEUS ! speravi in te.
O care me Jesu, nunc libera me !
In dura catena, in misera poena, desidero
Languendo, gemendo, et genu flectendo,
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!
1 The manuscripts of these three poems were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in 1864 by Captain Montague, R.N., who had bought them at a sale of Mr. Robert Lemon's papers, at Messrs. Puttick and Simpson's, 7th July, 1850. (Lot 143.)
2 From Sharman's " Poems of Mary Queen of Scots," and Walpole's "Royal and Noble Authors" (1806 edition). The pedigree of this poem is not very clear, but most writers have accepted it as a genuine composition of Mary's.
APPENDIX V DATE OF THE POEM " ADAMAS LOQUITUR "
As to the date of this poem there are three possible theories. If it refers to the same incident as does Buchanan's poem on the same subject (the gift of a diamond heart), we might follow Conaeus, who refers the latter poem to 1565, shortly after the Darnley marriage; or Ruddiman, Buchanan's editor, who gives the date 1564. But Mary was at that time on far from cordial terms with Elizabeth, who had opposed her marriage and encouraged her rebels to revolt. It might also seem possible that it accompanied the diamond ring which Mary is known to have sent to Elizabeth in 1568 on her first arrival in England. But in 1568 Mary was in very distressed circumstances, and this does not accord well with the spirit of the poem, which (unlike the other sonnet addressed to Elizabeth) is not written in the tone of a suppli- ant or of a person overwhelmed with misfortune. It seems also possible to refer it to an altogether earlier and more prosperous period in Mary's life, when she was sincerely anxious to win Elizabeth's friendship, and when many messages and compliments were exchanged between the two queens; for in 1562, when the proposed meeting between Mary and Elizabeth was being discussed, we find Mary saying to Randolph: " Above everything, I desire to see my good sister; and next, that we may live like good sisters together, as your mistress hath written unto me that we shall. I have here a ring with a diamond fashioned like a
173
174 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
heart; I know nothing that can resemble my goodwill unto my sister better than that. My meaning shall be expressed by writing^ in a few verses^ which you shall see before you depart, etc." (Randolph to Cecil, 1 7th June, 1562.) That the poem reached its destination we learn by a letter from Killigrewto Dudley, i5th July, 1562, in which he says that he encloses a copy of French verses, which were " sent our Queen [Elizabeth] in Latin by her good sister and neigh- bour [Mary] . . . , with a token in which was a heart of diamond." Killigrew adds that he " will send the Latin verses," and requests in the meantime that Dudley will translate those he encloses — " make these speak English." Although Killigrew speaks as if the Latin only were the original, yet the fact that the verses were also extant in French is almost conclusive that Mary herself first composed them in that language, and then perhaps translated them into Latin and presented the two versions to her cousin, as, later, she sent a second poem written out in French and Italian. Malcolm Laing, a historian not always as accurate as he is emphatic, rejects this poem as spurious without giving his reasons for so doing. At all events, it will be seen that there are two contemporary witnesses to corroborate Sir Thomas Chaloner's statement that his poem is " a trans- lation of certain verses which were first written in the French language, and sent by the most serene Queen of Scotland to the most serene Elizabeth, Queen of England, . . . together with a ring of excellent workmanship, in which a remarkable diamond was conspicuous." The only point which seems to throw a doubt on the matter is that of the Latin poem, almost exactly similar in sense,1 included among the works of George Buchanan, and also stated to have been written by him for Mary on the occasion of her sending a diamond heart to Elizabeth. This certainly is something of a puzzle. 1 Beginning " Non me materies facit superbum> etc."
APPENDIX V 175
Did Mary write the lines in French, and did Buchanan com- pose one Latin version and she another? Or must we abandon Mary's claim to the poem and suppose that Buchanan was the original author; that Mary merely trans- lated his poem into French, which was then again converted into Latin for Chaloner's book? Before we finally discredit Chaloner's statement, however, we should remember that he distinctly credits Mary with the authorship of the poem, and that his book was published in 1579, therefore during the lifetime of Elizabeth, of Mary, and of Buchanan him- self. Chaloner, besides, had occupied several important diplomatic posts under Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, and he was likely to be correctly informed as to a fact so perfectly familiar to Elizabeth and her court.
APPENDIX VI
THE ST. PETERSBURG MISSAL
MARY'S St. Petersburg Missal is described in detail by, Labanoff, and Professor Smyth, who saw it in 1862, says: "We examined every page of the book, and found the general description of it given by Prince Labanoff in the seventh volume of his * Lettres de Marie Stuart ' extremely exact. . . . Her property, truly, it had been, and her com- panion too, during almost all that was eminently happy or unhappy in her life. It came apparently into her possession in France about four years before her marriage with the dauphin, in token whereof, the 25th page bears the legend, in the queen's own hand : ' Ce livre est a mey, Marie Royne, 1554.' And as we find it, under the name of 'Livre d'Heures,' mentioned in the Chartley catalogue of her be- longings in August, 1586; and, again, under the name of a mattins book in the Inventory e of the Jewells , etc.) of the late Queene of Scottes in February, 1587^5 bound in velvet, with corner pieces, middle plates and clasps of gold adorned with diamonds, we may, without risking much, conclude it to have been a present from her royal lover and future husband.
"Certainly she appears to have cherished the volume dearly, to have carried it with her from the happy court of France, to have kept it by her through her varied career in her native land; and, finally, during her long imprisonment in England. Here it was that she began to enter in it her
APPENDIX VI 177
mournful thoughts and melancholy anticipations, always in French, and generally in verse, of a quaint and somewhat transcendental style. . . . Something special, therefore, tended to induce the Queen, towards the downfall of her career, to make this particular book the recipient of her feelings and fears ; and what cause so likely as that it was a gift from her first love, when he vowed to cherish and de- fend her through life, so help him God ! This view is per- haps strengthened by an explanation I would attempt of a circumstance yet unaccounted for, viz., that throughout the book there are introduced into the arabesques numerous shields for coats of arms once duly emblazoned; but such emblazoning has been subsequently erased, without a single exception, from the beginning to the end. . . . What were these erased arms?
" If the book was a royal pre-nuptial present, it was prob- ably prepared for the occasion; and Mary's own insignia, or such as would have pleased her, would have been in- serted. Now she laid claim, from an early period, to the throne of England; and when Dauphiness, on the death of the English queen Mary, had, with the Dauphin, and the approval of the French people, ' the English arms engraved on their plate, embroidered on their banners and painted on their furniture.' Hence we may conclude that there was something depicted on those shields which, even at first rather too ambitious, would be thought in a captive queen to be actually treasonable.
" At all events, the book was kept in England and about the court,1 until 1615, . . . and was then lost sight of until the early years of the French Revolution, when, stripped of its costly binding, the volume was bought at a cheap rate in
1 Labanoft mentions that various signatures are to be found in the book, such as those of Arabella Stuart and Francis Bacon, and others who could never have come into personal contact with Mary.
N
178 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
Paris, amidst a heap of plunder from the royal library there, by M. Doubrovsky, a gentleman attached to the Russian embassy in France, and by him transmitted to St. Peters- burg." (See " Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. iii, part iii, pp. 394-406.)
APPENDIX VII
THE "ESSAY ON ADVERSITY" (In the Original Frenchy
CELUI qui desire que son oeuvre ne puisse a bon droict etre moquee ou malisieusement 2 blasonee dun chasqun doyt ce me semble auuant tout aultre respect fayre si bonne ellection de la matiere quil pretend trayter que Ion ne
cest adasge encien
puisse dire resonable ne sutor ultra crepidam voila pourquoy la description a deduire ecrire laysant trayter de filosofies aux filosofes des loyx aux legisla-
de chanter ou de composer
de fayre
teurs leurs loyx Aux pouetes leurs chansons enrichies de fictions metamorfoses histoyres & profitables enseignements & brief donnant aynsin lieu a Chasqun de rendre quelque
sa
tesmoignasge celon Leur vocation de ce en quoy plus il auroit verse & profitay iay pence ne pouvoyr mieulx emploier
1 From the original manuscript in the State Paper Office, Mary Queen of Scots, vol. xi, 37.
2 The words printed in Italics are scored through in the original MS.
179
i8o QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
mon temps fuiant oysivete ores que ie ne puts ni que il ne mest lor ie nay le moyen dexercer la charge en laquelle dieu
discourir
parler diversite
ma apellee des le berceau que de ser de la diferance des afflictions & des que e . . . sont T Wooduil cest a scavoir en
es diselles
dunquns la diferents evenements qui & de ceste entreprise personne a mon advis ne me scauroit iustement reprendre
aussi pour lexperience que ien ay
pour mestre pour le choyx
estant subiect subiect si familier & dont iay eu autant dex- perience que personne de nottre asge mesmement de ma
duquel ou auuoir
qualite 2 & dont aumoigns les beneuolles pouront tirer matiere dexercer leur charite acomplissent ce m commendement qui nous est donne de pleurer auuesques les pleurents princi- pallement quant ilz vendront a considerer en quelles afflic- tions nous sommes iournellement subiects de . . . . denchoyr dont aussi ils prendront occasion en temps de soy retourner a dieu pour par oraysons & devotions prier destourner son ire de nous. Et les afflisges comme moy qui viendront a lire ce petit discours i voiront les exemples de ceulx qui ont souffert pareilles miseres dauuant eulx & quant & quant trouueront
se que leur remede a tousiours este de retourner a dieu qui les
mais
inuitera den fayre le semblable 6° pour quil i a plusieurs generes3 daflictions les unes tous [chant] plus viuement
1 In the margin at this point is written: " & comme chose dont iay autant plus dexperience que persone de notre asge principallement de ma qualite," which Mary has erased with a few lines of her pen.
2 In margin: " nen scauroit auuoyr meilleure experiance."
3 In margin: " ou diuersites."
APPENDIX VII 181
linterieur de Ihomme partie la plus noble & pour ce respect plus dangereuses les autres moyns qui seullement apartienent
de
le corps iay este dadvis pour ne rien confondre deduire chesque espece daduersite a par soy commencant aux plus grieues & dont cest ensuiui malheureuse fin a ceulx qui obstines en leur malice les & par ce delaysses de dieu en ont este persecutes iusques a fayre mauayse fin ce desperents eulx mesmes ou ne voulant ce reconoitre & amender & de touts ceulx si nous metrons poyne damener tousiours quel- ques exemples tant de lecriture de que des enciens eteniques ou grands personasges modernes & apre seconde [ment] puis nous deduirons le au contrer de ceulx qui estants trauailles de semblables ou mesmes aduer [sites] les ont receues comme iustes & favorables chatiments de ce bon dieu & pere que ils reconoissent auuoir si souuent & grieuement offences & par ce moyen les tribulations ont serui a ceulx issi de four- nese pour esprouuer leur vertu comme est le fin or dauesques le mauays et mesmes de leur fayre ouurir les yeulx par auuant
a
auuegles pour ce conoitre eulxmesmes & leur faultes qui est le commencement de tout bien & moyn daprendre a despriser ce monde & ces vanites pour ce resigner du tout soubs &
en recompance au bon plesir de leur createur qui pour ce leur a donnes des
doit
benedictions mondenes & spirituelles qui sont on consister toute nottre felisite qui valent trop mieulx & puis nous con- clurons par auuesques la grace de dieuflar noire par propre resolution 6° priere a dieu a ce quil luy plaira me donner perfecte pasience aux mienes 6° grace de mamender d^ me porter si bien que ie puisse bien quis digne ettre du nombre de ces derniers soufrant portant wlonteremente ma croix en ce monde or donques suiuuant ma protestation antece pre-
i82 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
grieves adversites
cedante ie metre au premier rang des plus des tribulations pur la plus grande qhomme doiuue ou puisse auuoir la mauayse & coulpable consience car cest un ver qui tousiours ronge & pour bien ou felisite qui puisse posseder celui qui la en est vexe iamays il na repos ni ne scauroit dormir en
ni sans sursault & soupson d'aultrui
repos tesmoigns denis le tirant & tant dautres car com me dit cicero in concienscia mille testes & de ceste pernisieuse
faire par un des siens
peste fut mene au desespoir ab iusques a ce tuer soy mesmes apres auoir tue ces freres
auant
abimelec apres estant seulement bien peu blesse dune thuile qune famme lui layssa choyr sur la teste Architofel voiant son conseil nestre receu que faulsement auoit bailie centre
le
son bon roy davit ce pendit luymesmes Zambri qui en comme traytre tua son Roy au bout de 7 iours ce fit luimesmes miserablement brusler en la meson Royalle & pou le pire de tous iudas ne fut il ateint de ce malheur quant reietant les trante deniers au temple il sescria auuoir tray le sane
Publius entre
iuste & inoncent mays laysants la bible voions ung moyns les eteniques
qui ayant tue marc marcelle eut telle horreur du fet que quil sen fit autant a luymesme catilina de mesme voiant sa coniuration descouverte ayma mieulx ce priuer de vie que soufrir tel remord & obbrobre & entre les modernes Uses P Jouues ce quil dit du tirant patauinus & ce que ie dis qui
&
trop efrenement abitieulx dhonneur n ce sentants acuses ou
ou au grand preiudice epris ou soupsenes dauuoir acte contre n iceluy se sont
APPENDIX VII 183
diceluy
tant oublies [Above the line: eulx mesmes & en si peu de
despoir de la
fiance] de la bonte de dieu iustice de dieu qui enfin de
liuurer les innocents de tout disfasme & voir & esface les
pesches de ceulx qui en humilitay ce retournent vers lui
promesse a faicte
celon la commendement quil nous done quant il nous dit vous tous qui estes charges venes a moy & ie vous des- chargeray que inpassiens dun ou destre repre de telle infortune malheur qui veritablement est grand car notre seigneur mesme ce montra curieulx de sa reputation quant
mesme se montrant
il enquist a ces disciples de ce que Ion disoit de luy porta fasche
a regret & quant mays neaumoyngs souuent si fault tousiours en ceste affliction & tout autre user ce guarde dinpassience1 . . . udese par ou qui est une voie bien directe a desespoyr
chasquns
tellement que souuant pensants ce guarantfire] dune fascheri blasme Ion ne sexepte de cest . . . mais . . . tombe
ils encourent en un plus qui reussit dautruy Ion en un plus grand ont au preiudice faict Fin de
ils
soy mesme & par aynsin le diable que Ion pencent chasser rantre auuesques sept autres pires comme nous
lexemple
pouuons voir par Ihistoyre de cayn qui qui desireulx enuieulx de Ihonneur que son frere auoit receu par le tesmoignasge que dieu randit dauuoir son sacrefice plus agreable que le sien au lieu damander le sien & par cela recouurir pareil honneheur grace il fut si au transporte denuye quil comut
1 In the margin, about this point: "eulxmesmes procurent plus grand deshonneur que celuy."
1 84 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
un crisme veritablement digne dinfam[ie] car il respandoit
le sane de son frere de quoy estant encor repris par dieu
comme
qu pere si soigneux de ces enfans qui tousiours est prest de
nous admonester en temps de nous retourner a luy au lieu
ou demander de shumilier & reconoitre sa faulte 6° en dire pardon disan
coeur
quiconque me trouuera me tuera1 o trop superbement conoiteux de lombre dhonneur qui au lieu discelui perds le vray honneur ceul cest fayre comme le chien qui tenant une piece de cher en la bousche laquelle dans leau luy samble plus grand il la laysse choyr pour courir a son hombre qui nest rien
ieroboam ays aussi estant repris par le profete publiq [uement] luy semblant telle remontrance de son pesche deshonforable] commit un crisme au lieu desparer les precedents] vrayment abominable commandant que le St homme fut tue ne ce souuenant point que le vray deshoneur cest de pescher 6^ qui ce doyt fuir & estant remis
qui ne nous
esfascer par larmes & penitance & quoy non linuitoit la doyt etre que comme lombre aupres du un malfayt
reprehension de laquelle ayant honte il exouuroit un perpetre par
iuste opropre vray le meurtre dun homme iuste est fay t est le vray corps herodes demesme cuidant oster esf cascher
le publioyt son vilain inceste que St ian publioyt pour len diuerti[r] par
a la ses reprehensiens a fut par la persuasion de sa malheureuse
1 In the margin : " ce que dieu ne lui voulut permettre pour la plus honte auesques laquelle il lui falut uiure long temps en obbrobre de tout le monde."
APPENDIX VII 185
compaigne & incestueuse famme de decapiter ce St & digne profete
ne luy
mays quoy que enaduint il double deshonneur car son pesche en fut plus publiquement conneu & adioustant ce meurtre il port refusa la grace & pardon de dieu qui de laquelle priue il mourut miserablement & son nom nous
vie
demeure en examble de vilayne & abominable obstiantion le peuple des iuifs si ambitieulx de Ihonneur de leur empire & lautre herode
mays que livresse de
le peuple des iuifs ne pouuoit soufrir une telle vergoigne tout un peuple & quil col le peculier
que destre reprins par St etiene quel remede il miront Us Us au lieu den fayre penitence ils comirent pire crisme metant Ihomme a mort qui priant encor pour ceulx qui ne sen sousioient {Above the line is written: quils le lapiderent procurents par ce moyen leur eternelle ruine & la louange imortelle de celuy de celuy qui cependant prioit dieu pour
ils nefurent ils done pas bien recompances eulx] ains procuroye leur eternel damnation qui est le vray
a leur grande infame brief a tout deshonneur ou deshonneur car de tout autre il i a remede veu que dieu nous dit que si nos pesches estoyent plus rousges que scarlate il les randra plus blancs que nesge & aux inosents leur gloire en cera plus grande si ils suportent ceste croix passiament ON & pour nobmetre les etniques socrates ce voiant accuse & condampre a la mort cuidant euader lignomine dicelle il
ie diray de
enourut or a vice de plus inpassian ce montrant & au scipion lafricain qui vers
ce voiant a tort acuse de sa patrie cuidant euader le
de ce uoir mepris des siens desplesir de ouir son blasmer comit une plus digne destre
1 86
QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
mesp[rise] [Above the line: perdit le nom de magnanime allant sadonnant a une vie & volontiers exil] & encourut le blasme au grand preiudice de la republique a laquelle pour son honneur il ne deuuoit pour nul respect manquer au besoing autrement ne scauroit il etre dit bon citoyen qui est le plus honorable titre quhomme puisse guaigner faut celuy de bon chrestien coriolanus cheut en pareil ereur & pis car il de desespoir ce fit enemi de sa patrie pour laquelle
ces
ruiner il vint auuesques une grande armee ou les fames parentes oblurssit
montrarent plus dignes citoyenes que lui qui effassa par
precedents ceste inpassience ces beaulx fayts par auuant dignes de
mais pour ce
louanges ie me souuiens quaux eteniques le fayt nest si digne
& entre de reprehension ie vous parlerey des chrestiens to leu dun
qui mest venu
autres dun que bien a la memoire pour lauuoir leu na pas long temps il i eut donq ung nomme pierre des vignes chanselier de lempire homme de basse condition mays toutefoy de si bon entendement que & docte quil fut pour ce trouue digne de telle charge & qui plus est si porta si
federic seconde
bien que lempereur esmu de sa sufisance & fidelite luy donoit tout credit autorite de fayre & defayre ce quil voul- droit en son conseil ce qui suit chose commune aux courts
telle enuieaux cueurs d . . . ois
des grands que faulcement par luy imposerent lettres & tesmoigns inuente & subornes qui laccuserent vers lempereur
son capital enemi
dauuoir inteligence auuesques le pape inoscent auquels ils seignoynt quil auoit reuele ces segrests & communique ces
APPENDIX VII 187
lettres lempereur trop soubdayn i prestant foy lui fit crener les yeulx de quoy le pauure homme ne ce sentoit si f ... que de ce voir mesprise dun chasqun & priue de Ihonneur
la perte
que la fidelite lui auuoit merite duquel luy fit si grieve de que sa bonne cause il en fit une mauayse car ne pouuant viuure en telle ignominie & mauayse reputation il se fit mesner en place ou lempereur entrent en lesglise le pouuoit
nom de meurtrier de soy mesme
voir & la sasquit un infasme dehonneur ce donnant de la teste centre un pillier ou de fasson quil ce tua a linstant mays quoy oseres ie vous metre dauuant les yeulx un noble & vertueulx prince & auquel ie sents honoree dapartenir
de parolle
qui ne pouuant soufrir un petit deshonneur saquit un blasme & note en son illustre nom de mauais subject en pire terme
mays
quil ne me ceroit honneste lapeler dont en quoy en fin il
son
procea si auuant pour venger un iniure que il perissoy ces nom cest
biens & son nom voyla comment il en prend de ne receuoir les afflictions & chastiments de dieu en humilitay & passience
en ce propos
quels que soient & pour nostre nestre trop prolixe sur
o acte tant de divers points . . . ie desire trayter nous parlerons de
indigne dung a qui seullement nest permis
la 6° ne doyt le chrestien nullement pou murmurer des verges de dieu ayns pancer quil a pus meritay & que il ni a crisme ni deshonneur que samandant & re en faysant penitance ne puisse ettre effasce veu que dieu nous dit que si noz pesches estoyent plus rousges que scarlate si a nous ne tient il les randra plus blancs que nesge & si nous
1 88 QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
sommes inocents notre recompence en cera plus grande & nottre gloire plus exelente que dauuoir patiamment suporte la croix de qui nous est impossee pour augmenter notre merite & nous esprouuer & toutefoys o quel malheur nous
ombre
voions tous les iours que pour cest dhonneur que les hommes ont forge en leur testes les plus sasges & & vertueulx & grands personasges perdront la vie & haserderont lame & la p . . . dun demantir ou parolle legierement dite ne seront tous ienee layssant la loy de dieu a part comme etrangere non seullement de cherscher leur . . . nge [revenge f\ particuliere mays de tourner . . . estats sans desubs desoubs pour si peu de chose helas qune parole qui nest que vent & laquelle celuy qui lauroit dite volontiers sen dediroit si dautre part
des hommes
ceste loy enemye de la chres celle de Jesus ne len destour- noit helas & que nous aurons a en respondre ung iour qui permetons le prince du monde tant regner sur le troupeau
charge
que nous auuons eu si estroite du grand bergier celeste io dieu le sasche car ien suis pour ma part en grand pencement cependant
non de parler dun autre point
mays mainte il est temps maintenant dentrer en un autre
daffliction matiere
discours a scauoir de celle qui vient qui nafflisge pas peu a mon aduis toute personne de bon naturel & qui a quelque chose de magnanime
Dieu comme le bon pere de famille diuersement distribue ces tallents cest a scauoir ses graces & qui les rescoit & les
& ce q. . . . 1. ... peu
met a profit est deschasse renuoye a la poyne eternelle restoit mays lui est oste 6- celui celuy qui les fayt profitay en resoyuent double loyer &
APPENDIX VII 189
est
sont mis & apele en la ioye infinie comme nous en seigne similitude sen en pays etranges
\2iparaboll de Ihomme riche qui allant unquerir un royaume layssa a lung de ses seruiteurs trois trois talents lautre deu[x] & lautre une S M XXV s luc XIX or comme dit St Paul omnia que scripta sunt nostra doctrina scripta sunt
comme agreable
comme lumilite est la vertue plus plesant a dieu comme
& celle dont toutes autres prenent racine <5^ sans laquelle
aynsin est
croissance & perfection aynsin le contrere qui
elle ne peuuent venir a auqunne perfection estant contrere est & augmentation
dorgueul mere & source de tout vice 6* qui malheur & pesche mays toutefoys si fault il auuoir esguard & auuesques
pour euiter
prudent iugement considerer de que lun ne se pouuoit euiter Ion ne doit sabismer en laultre iusques a tomber en la domageable & de ville fosse de pusilanimite chose trop contrayre aus esprits genereulx tels que doyuent etre ceulx
nes
qui par la provision divine sont apeles a tenir sceptre ranc & autorite sur le peuple de dieu
forsant & hec olim meminisse iuvabit
la douleur decuba de porsia de dido
orayson de ieremy chapitre V
nous naysons & pleu . . .
la pierre reiectee des massons sera mise . . .
omnia qui scripta sunt ad nostram doctrinam . . .
venes vous tous qui estes charges ie dit le meme . .
le profete qui seruoit de viuure & son traytoit le . . .
mort pour la courage . . .
IQO QUEEN MARY'S BOOK
les lamentations de ieremie pour son pays
le seaulme quant nous estions en babilonpe]
es lessons complaintes de iob
pleurs de davit pour son fils & pour son banissemen
dieu pleurent pour son amy le lassere
& en lombre de la croix quant le loy . . .
miserere mei saltern
beati qui lugent . . .
flere conflentibus
II est commande de porter le fayx les uns des autres
Beati qui sitiunt . . .
CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
;'
DA 787 A1A2 1907
Mary, Stuart
Queen Mary's book
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY