Royal women; their history and romance

Foreword

"XTISTORY is the essence of innumerable I I biographies." So says Carlyle. It was the author's purpose when these lectures were written to place before the audience in a new light some of the women who have helped to make up the world's history. No effort was made to prepare such as would be suitable for school-room or study class, in which every date must be absolutely correct, every fact beyond question. These things lie within the province of the text-book. The author takes for granted that the great historic events are known to all, and has therefore endeavored to use history solely to illustrate character. It is the charm of history that no matter how well we may know the facts — the bricks and mortar, as it were, that have builded the historical fabric — we turn with eagerness to any new information which a little research may bring to light, even though it add slightly to our former knowledge.

It is the private life of royal personages which interests us. Their public lives, restricted by ceremony and disguised by formalities, give little

Foreword

insight into their real characters. Not until we strip them of the lustre which blinds us, the glamour and the pomp in which they are enveloped, can we see them as they are. One fact we acknowledge as unquestionable. No matter to what heights men and women may climb, they are still human. The triumphs of glory and ambition do not satisfy the longings of the heart. A man though he be a king, a woman though she be an empress, feels as much the need of human sympathy, of personal happiness, as does the humblest citizen or the little peasant girl who walks barefooted in the fields. Ofttimes these royal people frankly admit that they would exchange the robes of state and the jeweled crown for the sound of a voice or a smile from some far-distant face.

The Dryasdust may contend if he will that history and romance are as far removed from each other as the East is from the West, yet even he must admit that all romance when it concerns royalty becomes history. None can deny the part that the Casket Letters, whether genuine or forged, played in the life of Mary Queen of Scots; and the love letters of Mirabeau and Gambetta are as much a part of the history of France as is the Code Napoleon.

History and romance, then, go hand in hand. Where the one leads the other follows. History

Foreword

is like a gigantic fortress whose grim and massive walls triumphantly defy decay. Romance is a tender, clinging vine. Year after year it clambers over those damp and musty walls. It creeps into every tiny nook and crevice. It hides their bare ugliness from the sight of man, and keeps them green forever and a day.

M. R. M.

Contents

PAGE

I The Last of the Tudoks .... 1 Elizabeth of England

II Crown and Thistle 53

II Crown And Thistle

Mary Queen o£ Scots

Mary Stuart in youth

II

CROWN AND THISTLE

HISTORIANS have made of Mary Queen of Scots either a martyred saint or an incorrigible sinner. In point of fact she was neither. Her beauty, her romance, her faults, her misfortunes, her short, eventful life, her years of captivity, and her tragic death have combined to make her one of the most picturesque and remarkable figures in all history. When her English cousin signed her death warrant, she did what she would have given her crown to prevent. She made Mary Stuart immortal.

Her life was divided into two distinct epochs. The first included her childhood, her young womanhood in France, and her return to Scotland — a period neglected by historians. The rest of her years made up the second epoch. The multitude of events which crowded into her later years have made us forget that nearly half her life was over before her stormy history in Scotland began. 53

The raven croaked when Mary Stuart was born. She entered hfe with a prognostication of failure. Late in the afternoon of a wintry day in December, 1542, a single horseman rode swiftly over the moorlands in the direction of Falkland Palace. It was the day after the battle of Solway Moss. Ten thousand Scots had been put to flight by three hundred Englishmen, and in one of the bare, unfurnished chambers in the tower of the palace, James Fifth of Scotland lay dying.

The rider answered the challenge of the sentry at the gate and was permitted to enter. "On the king's business ! " he said to the guard at the door. A moment later he was admitted to the room where the dying man lay. The face of the king lighted up when he entered.

*' You have news ^ " he asked eagerly.

" Take heart, Milord. All is not yet lost. Youhave a child."

" A child, you say ? A son ? "

" Nay, Milord ; 't is a daughter — a wee bit lassie."

The sick man groaned. "And is it indeed so ? " he asked, sorrowfully. "Then God's will be done. The crown came to the Stuarts with a lass, and 't will go with a lass." Then he turned his face to the wall and spoke no more, save to mutter in

Mary Queen of Scots 5ry

his delirium the words, " Sohvay Moss — Sohvay Moss."

The history of Mary Stuart is largely a story of flight. Almost from the day of her birth to the day of her death she flitted from place to place, from palace to palace, from castle to castle, from prison to prison, driven hither and yon either by fear or by necessity, like chaff that is blown before the wind. The turbulent life of the little kingdom, torn both by foreign invasion and domestic warfare, had ebbed and flowed for centuries before she was born, and had left its impress upon the character of the nation over which she had to reign.

The ancient Scots were a rude and intrepid people. They were divided into clans governed by the head of the family, whom all the clan served with fidelity even unto death. All the members of the clan bore the same name, and between clan and clan there existed, for injuries inflicted or for murders committed, all those hereditary feelings of vengeance, those deadly hatreds which form the chief characteristic of that early state of society where the family constituted the only bond of association.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, some fugitive adventurous Saxons and Normans ventured into the Lowlands of Scotland. It was more as colonists than as conquerors that they came, but from the time of their coming there existed in the small kingdom two peoples, two languages, two states of society, two forms of organization. The old Celtic races kept to the mountains. The Anglo-Saxons occupied the plains. The Highlanders spoke the Gaelic, the Lowlanders the English language. The former continued to live in clans. The latter lived under the institutions of feudalism. The Highlanders recognized no bond except that of the family relationship. The Lowlanders acknowledged all the political and terwtorial framework of a military society. War was, so to speak, of permanent existence in Scotland. Quarrels between clan and clan, between Highlander and Lowlander, were of continual occurrence, and to these were added foreign wars of no little importance. When such a state of affairs exists uninterrupted for centuries, it cannot fail to have its effect upon the character of the people, and this was the great problem which confronted the Stuarts.

When James First came to the throne he endeavored to bring the clannish nobility into some sort of system. After that the Stuarts labored incessantly to diminish their influence and to humble their pride. James First, like his descendant, Mary Queen of Scots, was a prisoner in England for u in

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I— I o O s eighteen years. At the end of that time he was murdered in a Dominican monastery by a clansman. During the long minority of James Second all the changes which James First endeavored to make disappeared, but as soon as he came of age he recommenced the work. He was killed by the bursting of a cannon on the battle-field, which fate doubtless saved him from one similar to his father's. James Third was left a minor, but as soon as he was old enough he took up the work. He acted with neither energy nor discernment, however, and all he accomplished was to unite the nobility against himself, instead of dividing it. He died in battle, and James Fourth, either alarmed or admonished by his father's and forefathers' fate, did not follow in their footsteps. He made terms with the Scottish nobility and took advantage of the quiet ^vhich ensued to strengthen his kingdom. He married the daughter of Henry Seventh, who had just brought to a termination the violent civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster in England, and who was the founder of the Tudor dynasty. But Henry Eighth promptly undid what good his father had accomplished in regard to Scotland, and forced the king of the latter country to form a new alliance with the king of France and to take up arms against England. For once the king and the nobility acted in concert. But

James Fourth fell at Flodden Field, and under the long minority of James Fifth, who was less than two years old, the affairs of Scotland fell into the utmost disorder. The latter is interesting chiefly because he was the father of Mary Stuart. He sowed his wild oats with ungrudging partiality, and his end was no less tragic than that of his predecessors.

Occasionally some would-be authority on the subject declares that there is nothing in heredity, but we smile at his misguided enthusiasm and pass him by, realizing, as always, that it is the most powerful factor in the sum of human destiny. That the tendencies which ancestors transmit mould the character of their descendants is unquestionable. As the parents are, so the children are likely to be, to a greater or less extent. One has but to glance at the face of James Fifth to see where Mary Stuart got her beauty, her witchery, her charm, and alas ! her frailty.

No doubt James Fifth would have improved things to ^ certain extent, however, had it not been for the religious disturbance then prevalent in England. He could not but realize the difficulties of his position if Scotland remained a Catholic country while England turned Protestant. Henry Eighth urged him to accept his plans, both political and religious, and offered him his oldest daughter in marriage. He made things so unpleasant that James was compelled to choose between the two alternatives, namely, the ruin of the Catholic Church and the long cherished desire of his family, the conquering of the feudal nobility. He rejected Henry's proposal, but in so doing he was forced to return to the ancient policy of his country, which was a protective alliance with the king of France. He married Magdalen, daughter of Francis First of France. She lived but a few months, and then he wed Mary of Lorraine. She was the sister of the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, and became the mother of Mary Queen of Scots.

Mary of Lorraine was one of those splendid women about whom history says little. The problem which confronted her after the death of James Fifth was a difficult one. Two sons had been born to them, but both had died in infancy. She could not but realize that the odds were against her. The tiny daughter who was destined to the crown of Scotland was a menace to the crown of England from the day of her birth. She herself was a foreigner — a stranger in a strange land.

Mary was born in the old palace of Linlithgow, on December 8, 1542. This, the first of the stopping points, as it were, in IMary's career, was unquestionably one of the most splendid palaces of its day. It is still magnificent, even in its ruin.

The great courtyard is tenanted now only by the birds of the air. The water no longer flows from the carved fountain in the center. The roofs of the chapel and the banquet hall have fallen in long since. The palace is full of hidden stairways, subterranean passages, shadowy hiding places similar to those of the terrible castle of Louis Eleventh at Loches, but the court of Scotland was at its gayest when Linlithgow was the royal residence. With the birth of Mary Stuart, however, its bright days seem to have become dimmed with a foreshadowing of coming sorrow. James Sixth, Mary's son, came here occasionally, but the glory of the palace had gone out like the flame of a tiny candle in a gusty casement. After the retreat from Stirling, the troops of General Hawley occupied it and built such huge fires on the hearths that there was a terrible conflagration. It was left a blackened ruin, but still stately, majestic, and royal even in its decay. Carved in the stone over the deep bay window in the room where Mary was born is the Crown and Thistle, commemorative of the event.

The mind of Mary's mother was filled with foreboding when she thought of the future of her child. True, there were staunch hearts in Scotland, hearts to whom this little babe was inexpressibly dear, who recognized that she was the sole representative of the ancient royal line. Mary of Lorraine feared that the effort would be made to separate her from her child, and she was not mistaken. Untold dangers beset her from nearly every quarter. No sooner was James Fifth dead than the Earl of Arran, next of kin, claimed the regency. He then determined to get possession of Mary, and how pertinaciously her mother struggled to retain control of her child is a matter of history. Over in England was a still more powerful enemy, Henry Eighth. He, too, was watching the progress of affairs. He was not blind to the fact that the continuance of the royal line in storm-shaken Scotland depended on the existence of a fragile babe. He began to lay plans. He would cheat Mary out of her inheritance if he could and get control of her country himself. He demanded her betrothal to his son, Prince Edward. This was granted. Then he demanded that the infant queen be placed in his hands for safe-keeping, but here he failed. He found the laws of Scotland, as well as the will of the people, too much for him on this occasion. Then he demanded that at the age of ten she should be sent to England, and that in the meantime an English lady and gentleman should be placed with her, who should conduct her education after the English fashion. The queen mother was filled with alarm. She had the greatest distrust of Henry. There was but one way to outwit him. She would send her child to her own people in France if she could not summon enough support to keep her with her in Scotland.

Mary was only a few weeks old when she made her first flight. For the absolute safety of her person her mother fled with her to Stirling Castle and lodged her royal charge safely behind those impregnable w^alls. In the old square tower which looked out toward the Highlands the nursery was situated, and altogether unruffled by the fierce excitement which was agitating two kingdoms on her account, Mary grew and flourished in strength and beauty, and was in every respect a healthy, happy, normal child. From Stirling Castle, when she was eight months old, she was taken to the church of the Grey Friars to be crowned. On the ninth day of September, 1543, they took her from her cradle, enveloped her in royal robes, and carried her from the nursery to the old church where she was invested with all the glittering symbols of an inheritance which proved fatal. The crown was placed upon her brow, the scepter put in a tiny hand too small to hold it, the great sword of state girded around her. Every prelate and peer knelt before her, repeated the oath of allegiance, and kissed her little hand. No wonder she wept.

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It is recorded that she never ceased to weep during the whole of the ceremony — an event which filled the minds of the people with superstitious fears and forebodings.

The coronation of Mary exasperated Henry Eighth beyond measure. He ordered her seized and sent to England, but his envoys found it impossible either to corrupt or outwit the faithful lord keepers who had her safely in charge; and although Stirling Castle was considered capable of resisting any sort of attack the little girl was removed once more, this time to the Priory on the picturesque island of Inchmahome, in the Lake of Menteith in Perth, close to the north border of Stirlingshire.

When one has a desire (as some one has fitly expressed it) to realize history, he should make a pilgrimage to this old Priory, or the ruins, which are now all that remain of it. It is about half an hour's ride from Stirling, and it is almost as secluded there today as it was four centuries ago. He may walk down the aisles where the abbots trod long since, and pause by the graves in the choir. For some reason the quiet dead seem always to rest more peacefully in such spots as this than in the mad rush of the world outside. The ruined refectory is roofless now and open to the air. My lady's chamber is tenantless forever.

Gone is the roof, and perched aloof

Is an owl, like a Friar of Orders Grey. Perhaps 't is a priest, come back to feast —

For priests do not always fast, they say. The doughty lords sleep the sleep of swords,

Dead are the dames and damozels.

The king in his crown has laid him down,

And the jester with his bells.

Over this little island Mary romped and clambered, clad in the national costume, passing almost the only happy days she ever knew in the land that gave her birth. When she left it the glory of the old Priory departed. Nothing disturbed its monotony again until the giant waves of the Reformation broke over Scotland. Since the ruin occasioned by that great religious convulsion, deep peace has wrapped its mantle around Inchmahome. Year after year the ivy has clambered farther and farther over the old domain, and nothing breaks the silence there now save the rustling grass beneath your feet. Few visit the island. Of the thousands who travel to Scotland year after year, doubtless many are unaware that on this little island they would see not only one of the most interesting but one of the loveliest spots on earth.

When Mary was taken to Inchmahome she was accompanied by the four Maries, faithful little attendants, companions and friends of her childhood. They went with her to France, returned with

Mary Queen of Scots Q5

her to Scotland, and forsook her never till her tragic death. The old rhyme* tells us that

Yesterday there were four Maries ;

Today there are but three.

There was Mary Beaton and Mary Seaton

And Mary Carmichael and me.

Mary Beaton was the daughter of Sir John Beaton, the keeper of Falkland Palace, to which James Fifth fled after the battle of Solway Moss, and where he died. Some of the names most famed in Scottish song and story are connected with the four Maries. Mary Beaton married Alexander Ogilvie, who figured largely in the history of Mary Stuart's reign. Mary Fleming was the daughter of the queen's aunt, Lady Fleming. She married the famous Maitland of Lethington. Mary Livingston was the daughter of Mary Stuart's guardian, and from her vigorous habits due to her youth and health she was called "Mary the lustie." She was married to John, the son of Robert, Lord Semple. The Semples were a family famed for their literary and artistic gifts. Among them were poets, artists, and musicians of merit.

Mary Seaton alone of the four remained unmar-

* There is something wrong about the well-known rhyme, however. The names of the four little girls were Mary Beaton, Mary Seaton, Mary Livingston, and Mary Fleming. The rhyme is supposed to have been composed by Mary Stuart, the word me referring to herself.

ried while Mary Stuart was in Scotland. She went with her when she fled into England, was in constant attendance on her until the end of her life, and walked by her royal mistress' side into the great stone hall at Fotheringay on the morning when the final tragedy was wrought.

What a contrast between the fairy island of Inchmahome and the Gibraltar - like fortress on Dumbarton Rock whither Mary's next flight was taken. It is a huge cone-shaped rock divided into two parts and almost four hundred feet high. The top is reached by long flights of steps, and at high tide the place is almost an island. This great fortress was so old when Mary was there that the almost four hundred years which have passed since then are but as yesterday. The actual date of its foundation is not known. It was occupied by the Romans in 368. The Danes and Norwegians, the Romans and the Picts waged a thousand battles around and over it, changing it not at all. Dumbarton calls to memory the story of William Wallace. Here he was received by Menteith with all honor as a friend and then by the basest of treachery was handed over to Edward of England to meet his trial at Westminster and his cruel death at Smithfield. At the entrance of the steps is a portal known as the Wallace Gate, and over it two heads are crudely carved in the stone. The heads are those of Wallace and his betrayer. The latter has his finger in his mouth, that being the signal by which he betrayed his chief and his friend to torture and death. But as is the case in every instance, Time has made all things right. It is no more possible to destroy a man like Wilham Wallace than it was to destroy Him who hung upon the cross at Calvary.

When she was at Dumbarton, Mary was as near as possible to France, to which country her mother had determined to send her if it seemed advisable. The necessity presented itself. She was six years old, and her education must be begun. Here she took leave of her devoted mother and sailed away, to exchange for a time the thistle of Scotland for tlie lily of France. Supposing that she would sail from Leith, Henry Eighth had his English galleys out intent upon her capture. But the vessel with Mary on board eluded the English ships that lay in wait for her.

One cannot but speculate on what her future would have been had she been captured at this time by the English. Would her life have been less stormy, her death less tragic? Not so. Edward, the young son of Henry Eighth, to whom she would have been married, might perhaps have shown her courtesy and consideration while he lived, but after his early death nothing could have saved her from the jealousy and fear of Mary Tudor. There would have been the same quarrel, for the same reason, between herself and Elizabeth. Her experience in her English prison would only have been hastened, and would have ended on the scaffold just the same. Tower Hill would have anticipated Fotheringay. She would have missed her happy days in France. She would have lost her earthly immortality, and history would have been deprived of its most picturesque and romantic figure.

The vessel with Mary on board landed at Roscoff, a little port in Finistere, in Brittany, three hundred and fifty miles from Paris. It is a port unknown save to the fishermen along the coast, and to them it is known as a place from which to stay away — a rendezvous of smugglers and pirates. To this port also came Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender, whom the Scotch people affectionately called " Bonnie Prince Charlie," after his hapless venture in Scotland.

When we recall the sorrows of Mary Stuart's life, it is pleasing to remember that it held one period of uninterrupted sunshine. From the day of her landing at Roscoff until the death of her young husband necessitated her return to Scotland, she knew not a care. The court of France was the most corrupt in Europe, but her life there was unaffected by it. She spent her early years in the convent over which her maternal grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, presided, and which was noted for its purity. At St. Germain her betrothal to her cousin took place — and how many faces afterward famed in history gathered at that ceremony ! There were Henry Second and Catherine di Medicis, his queen, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, the little boys who later were to become Francis Second, Charles Ninth, and Henry Third, and that very ugly little fellow, Prince Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry Fourth, perhaps the greatest king France ever knew.

On the twenty-fourth day of April, 1558, Mary was married to her cousin, Francis de Valois, eldest son of the king of France. The wedding took place in the great Cathedral of Notre Dame. All the nobility of the ancient regime surrounded the young bride on her wedding day. She was truly loved by all. Even Catherine di Medicis, the austere, who afterwards cherished a deadly enmity toward Mary Stuart, said, " She has turned all our heads — this little rose of Scotland — to say nothing of our hearts." Old Notre Dame has witnessed many ceremonies, christenings, weddings, coronations, services for the dead, and one cannot think of Mary Stuart's wedding day without being touched with the remembrance of that other service — a service of sorrow and tears in memory of her after the tragedy at Fotheringay.

Mary was now sixteen years old, and the occasion of her marriage to Francis was the beginning of her quarrel with Elizabeth of England. The king of France had assumed for her on that day, in her name, the Coat of Arms of England. Mary was not consulted. She was the victim of circumstances. Elizabeth demanded an apology. Mary made it — for something which was not her fault. Elizabeth went further. She demanded the restoration of Calais, which had been taken from England by the Duke of Guise during her sister Mary's reign. The French commissioner was stung by her insolence into replying, "We are quite willing to restore Calais to the queen of England, whom we take to be Mary Stuart." Word was borne to the Court of Elizabeth that Mary had said that she hoped to be queen of England before long. Think not that the daughter of Henry Eighth forgot any of these things when Mary fell into her power.

One day a great change came to the royal house of France. The whole court, in merry mood, was watching a tournament in the courtyard, when suddenly all were startled by a cry from Catherine di Medicis, the queen. A moment more and Mary Stuart was no longer the wife of the Dauphin. She was Queen of France and Navarre. Henry Second

Ifl had been killed in mock combat in the courtyard, and then began that bitter enmity of Catherine di Medicis for Mary Stuart, an enmity which pursued her till the end of her life and yet was not powerful enough to record one word of slander against her while she lived in France. One may rest assured that Mary's life in France was blameless. The evil eyes of that licentious court would have laid bare her secrets had her life held any. Read the history of France during the reign of Henry Second and you will understand why John Knox and the Scottish Reformers objected to that country as a home for their little queen.

In the minds of the French people it is the illicit loves of their kings that linger longest. If you visit those royal abodes today and ask about Mary Stuart, you will find that they know nothing further about her than that she was for a short time the wife of the young king, Francis Second. But they will talk for hours about th-e beautiful Diana of Poitiers, the favorite of Henry Second, who wore her colors when he rode to his death, or of Gabrielle d'Estrees, who at a word from Henry Fourth forsook her lover on the eve of their marriage and followed the king, and who died a dreadful death from poison; of lovely Louise de la Fayette, for whom Louis Thirteenth would have sacrificed his kingdom; of Louise de la Valliere, the gentle, the charming, the adored of Louis Fourteenth, for a time ; of Madame de Montespan and Madame de Maintenon who supplanted her in the wavering affections of Le Grand Monarque; of the various and numerous favorites of Louis Fifteenth, especially the notorious Comtesse du Barri. Mary's life of innocence has left no trace, but the memory of these beautiful sinners is as abiding as though carved in stone.

After Mary's marriage only two short years went by. Francis, the young king, grew frailer and frailer. So fearful was he of his terrible mother that he dared not interfere with her plans. One day she called her court about her and compelled them to witness the slaughter of the Huguenots. The young king and queen were terrified. Mary fainted, but when she was restored was placed again in her chair by Catherine's orders. Francis rose to take her away. " Sit down, my son," said his mother; "I command you to remain. Teach your wife the duty of a sovereign."