bearer will tell you of my arriving; he prayed me to return, the which I did. He declared to me his sickness, [grief,] and that he would make no testament, but only leave all things to me, and that I was the cause of his malady because of the regret he had that I was so strange to him. And thus, he said, "You ask me what I mean by the cruelty contained in my letter, it is of you alone that will not accept my offers of repentance. I confess that I have failed, but not into that which I ever denied, and so have many other of your subjects, and you have well pardoned them: ... I am young May not a man of my age, for lack of counsel, fall twice or thrice, or in lack of his promise, and at last repent himself and be chastised by experience? If I may obtain pardon, 1 protest I shall never make fault again; and I crave no other thing but that we may be at bed and board together as man and wife, and if you will not consent hereunto I will never rise from this sick-bed. I pray you tell me your resolution. God knows how I am punished for making my god of you, and for having no other thought but on you."

He

I did still answer him, but that would be too long to write at length. . . . . In the end he desired much that I should lodge in his lodg ing. I have refused. . . . . He said to me, "I have heard say you have brought a litter with you, but I would rather have gone with yourself." I told him that so I would myself bring him to Craigmillar, that his physicians and I also might serve him without being far from my son. said he was ready when I would . . as for myself he would rather lose his life than do me the least displeasure, and used so many kind flatteries, so coldly, and so wisely, as you would marvel at. He would not let me go, but would have me to watch with him. I made as though I thought all to be true, and would think upon it. I have excused myself from sitting up with him this night, for he says that he sleeps not well; you never heard him speak better nor more humbly. And if I had not proof of his heart to be as wax, and that mine were not as a diamond whereunto no shot can make breach but that which comes forth of your hand, I would have almost had pity on him. But fear not, the place shall hold unto the death. Remember, in recompense thereof, that you suffer not yours to be won by that false race that would do no less to yourself. I believe they have been at school together; he has ever the tear in his eye: he salutes every body, yea, unto the least, and makes piteous caressing unto them, to make them have pity upon him. . . . This is my first day's work, I shall end the same to-morrow. I write all things, though they be of little weight. . . . . I am in doing a work here that I hate greatly. Have you not desire to laugh to see me lie so well, at the least to dissemble so well, and to tell him truth so betwixt hands. He hath shown me all on the bishop's behalf, and on Sunderland, without touching any word to him of that which you showed me, but only by much flattering him, and praying him to assure himself of me. . . . You have heard the rest. We are tied to two false races... God forgive me. God knit us together for ever, for the most faithful couple that ever he united. This is my faith: I will die in it. Excuse if I write ill, you may guess the half of it, but I cannot mend it because I am not well at ease, and yet very glad to write unto you when the rest are sleeping. . . . . I am weary and asleep, and yet cannot forbear scribbling as long as there is any paper.'-Ibid. vol. ii. p. 154.

There are many passages unfit for transcription, interspersed again with aspirations for God's blessing, and sentiments of shame at the course she is pursuing. The next day she continues her letter, beginning with speaking of a bracelet she is

making him (Bothwell), which he is to keep out of sight, and for the hasty workmanship of which she apologises, and then she remembers the loathed task in hand::

'I go to my tedious talk. You make me dissemble so much that I am afraid thereof with horror, and you cause me almost to do the office of a traitoress. Remember how, if it were not to obey you, I would rather be dead than do it. My heart bleeds at it.'-Ibid. p. 170.

And then another scene with her husband is detailed, in which she brought him round to her wishes:

To be short, he will go anywhere upon my word. Alas, I never deceived anybody, but I remit myself wholly to your will, and send me word what I shall do, and whatsoever happen to me, I will obey you. Think also if you cannot find any more secret invention by medicine, for he is to take medicine at Craigmillar and the bath also. He may not come forth of the house this long time. To be short, by all that I can learn he is in great suspicion, and yet, nevertheless, trusts upon my word, but yet not so far that he will show anything to me. But, nevertheless, I shall draw it out of him if you will that I avow all to him. But I shall never be willing to beguile one who puts his trust in me, nevertheless you may do all, and do not esteem me the less for that cause, because for my own particular revenge I would not do it to him. . To conclude, for certainty he suspects of the thing you know and of his life. But as to the last, so soon as I spoke two or three good words to him, he rejoices and is out of doubt. I have not seen him this evening for finishing your bracelet, but I can find no clasp for it. It is ready for them, and yet I fear it should bring you ill-hap, or that it should be known if you are hurt. ... Burn this letter, for it is over dangerous, and nothing well said in it, for I am thinking upon nothing but fasherie. . . . . Now seeing, to obey you, my dear life, I spare neither honour, conscience, nor hazard, nor greatness; take it in good part and not after the interpretation of your false brother-in-law, to whom I pray you to give no credit against the most faithful lover that ever you had or shall have. See not also her (his wife) whose feigned tears you ought not more to regard than the true travails which I endure to deserve her place, for obtaining of which, against my own nature, I do betray those that would lett me. God forgive me, and give you, my only friend, the good luck and prosperity that your humble and faithful lover doth wish unto you, who hopeth shortly to be another thing unto you, for the reward of my pains.'-Ibid. vol. ii. Appendix, p. 146.

The other letters are in much the same strain. They are given in the same work at full length, and also the notes drawn from them by the English and Scotch commissions when the matter was brought before Elizabeth. There is something almost ludicrous, if it were not too revolting a subject for such feelings, in the gravity of these documents. We have, from a paper endorsed by Cecil, A brief note of the chief and principall 'poincts of the Quene of Scottes lettres written to Bothaill, which may tend to her condemptnation, for her consent and procurement of the murder of her husband, as farre forthe as we coulde by the reading gather,' and by the Scotch commissioners a longer list coolly separating from the maze of love,

hatred, jealousy, and fantastic fancy, which agitated by turns the mind of the writer, such passages as bore on the matter in hand, and transcribing them in their uncouth Scotch translation, as for example-(we simplify the spelling):

Item, "As to me, howbeit I hear no farther news from you, according to my commission, I bring the man with me to Craigmillar," (where it was at first planned to commit the murder,) on Monday, "where he will be all Wednesday." Item, very shortly after: "Summa, ye will say he (Darnley) makes the court to me, of the which I take so great pleasure that I enter never where he is, but incontinent I take the sickness of my side, I am so fashed with it. I pray you advertise me of your news at length, and what. I shall do in case ye be not returned when I come there, for, in case ye work not wisely, I see that the whole burden of this will fall upon my shoulders." Item," I pray you, according to your promise, to discharge your heart to me, otherwise I will think that my malheur and the good handling of her that has not the third part of the faithful nor willing obedience unto you that I bear has won, against my will, that advantage over me which the second love of Jason won; not that I would compare you to ane sa unhappy as he was, nor yet myself to ane sa unpitiful a woman as she. Howbeit ye cause me be somewhat like unto her in anything that touches you or that may preserve and keep you to her, to whom you only appertain, if it may be sure that I may appropriate that which is worn though faithful, yea only loving of you, which I do and shall do all the days of my life, for pain and evil that can come thereof."'—Ibid. vol. ii. p. 215.

Mary seems to have entertained a great jealousy of Bothwell's wife. Like Cleopatra, she could not, in spite of her power and her matchless attractions, for one moment forget the married woman.' The sonnets abound in allusions to her: her false tears and feigned affection,' contrasting her own great sacrifices for him:

'Elle pour son honneur vous doibt obeyssance,
Moi vous obeyssant j'en puis recevoir blasme;
N'estant, à mon regret, come elle vostre femme.'

Third Sonnet. Laing, vol. ii. p. 224.

1 Miss Strickland, in her self-sacrificing devotion to her heroine, summarily sets down all the letters of the casket as forgeries, in a series of arguments which have hardly any semblance of weight and authority when uncontradicted, but which fall to the ground the moment the other side is heard. She thinks the sonnets may have been in Mary's own writing, but because they do not contain any mention of Bothwell's name, suggests that they might have been the composition of some troubadour which she had copied before quitting France. Their apparent relevancy to the matter in hand, would, if this were the case, be one of the most perverse of the many perverse coincidences which Mary's advocates have to assert and to lament over. As conclusive of her views of forgery, she clenches the argument by adducing the following solitary testimony as to the public opinion of Mary's contemporaries. It is in a letter from La Motthe Fenelon, French ambassador to Catharine de Medicis. We cannot receive it as so entirely settling the question:

Truly, it is believed by those of the Queen's side, that these letters are false, and that those seen are suppositious and counterfeited; and that since their malice and subtlety has been great enough to dispossess a rightful queen of her crown, they would not stand at counterfeiting her hand; and also they allege that should their queen have done anything of the kind, she never would have done it, excepting under the magic compulsion and sorcery of the Earl of Bothwell, as he knew well

We could go on multiplying extracts and proofs of guilt, but our readers will think we have already given them too much on a most unprofitable theme. We can only assure them that, from respect to them and to our pages, we have refrained from some passages and allusions which are even more conclusive of her guilty hatred and guilty love, while, on the other hand, for what we have given, our apology must rest on our strong sense of the impropriety and mischief of bringing serious charges without also adducing proofs. No man has a right to take away or injure the character of another by his own unsupported word. Nor would we cast an additional slur on the dead without giving the causes and reasons that have influenced us.

The details of the murder we need not enter into; all know that Mary continued her attentions and endearments to the last. She had arranged, through Paris,' with Bothwell and Lethington, that the place was to be changed from Craigmillar, to which Darnley had expressed a dislike, to Kirk of Field, on the pretence of its pure air. Thither, when he was well enough to travel in a litter, she took him. Her power over him was truly a fascination; he did all she wished him, and yet he mistrusted her. I have 'fears enough,' he said to Thomas Crawford, his friend (whose account remains to us); but may God judge between us! I have her promise only to trust to; but I have put myself in her hands, and I shall go with her, though she should murder 'me.' The place was inconveniently small, and unsuited for such high guests; but Mary remained under the same roof with him, while Bothwell was making his arrangements for the murder. Here the help of Hubert, or, as he is called, French Paris, whom the Queen had just received from his service into her own, was necessary. The evidence of this man, which he gave before his execution, throws light upon the whole transaction, and has, of course, been doubted, but bears strong internal evidence of truth. It is given with a garrulous naïveté, as if he had really enjoyed easing his mind of his share of the matter. We need not say it is conclusive against the Queen. He seems to have wished to satisfy himself of her share in the work in hand; for when Bothwell bid him move the Queen's bed (her room was exactly under the king's, and her bed just under his), as the gunpowder was to be placed there, Paris neglected the order, and when Mary came into the room in the evening, she herself ordered him to change the position of the bed.

that trade, having made it his greatest occupation from the time he was at school, to read and study books of necromancy and forbidden magic.' Here it is observable that the writer does not give his own opinion at all, and next, seems to think that the Queen's friends laid more stress on the magic than the forgery, of which no proof, either here or at any time, is attempted. That must have been regarded as a very hopeless case that had recourse to such a defence.

The Queen said to me, "Fool that you are, I will not have my bed in that place," and so made me remove it; by which words I perceived in my mind that she was aware of the plot. Thereupon I took courage to say to her, "Madam, my Lord Bothwell has commanded me to take to him the keys of your chamber, because he intends to do something in it, namely, (and this explanation is supposed to be to his examiners,) to blow up the King with gunpowder." "Do not talk about that at this hour," said she, "but do what you please." Upon this I did not venture to say anything more.'-Second Deposition of Paris. Mignet, vol. i. p. 264. Laing, vol. ii. p. 285.

Her self-possession and regard for little things at that time, are amongst the most terrible traits of her character, and connect her in our minds with many of the world's great historic criminals: the well-known care for the new velvet bed, on the ground that it would be soiled by Darnley's bath, and the substitution of an old purple travelling-bed in its place; also, her great solicitude about a rich coverlet of fur which she would not have blown up along with her husband. The Queen remained with Darnley in his room on Sunday night, till those who were in the secret could hear the fatal sounds of preparations going on below, so that Bothwell came down to bid them make less noise. He returned to the King's room with Paris, a signal that all was ready; who had not been there but the length of a paternoster,' when the Queen, affecting to remember that she had promised to be present at a mask on the marriage of one of her servants, suddenly quitted the place, and left her victim to his fate.

He beheld her departure with grief and secret fear. The unhappy prince, as though foreboding the mortal danger by which he was threatened, sought consolation in the Bible, and read the fifty-fifth Psalm, which contained many passages adapted to his peculiar circumstances. After his devotion, he went to bed and fell asleep, Taylor, his young page, lying beside him in the same apartment.'-Mignet, vol. i.

p. 266.

The noise of the explosion which followed awoke all Edinburgh. With what sound did it fall on Mary's ears, who, in the midst of her festivities, must have been listening and watching for it? This can never be known; we only know that the first person admitted to her presence afterwards was the murderer. At ten o'clock on the following morning, the news having been previously told her, she had got up all the external signs of mourning. Paris entered the Queen's chamber, from which the daylight was excluded, her bed, from which she had not yet risen, was hung with black, and one of her ladies was giving her her breakfast. Here Bothwell came in, and had a secret conference with her under the curtain. He soon left her, and reported to those without that the Queen was overwhelmed with grief. The day after, she sent the following cool account of the matter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, her ambassador at Paris: