Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 1 (of 2)

7

The Biographer of Knox goes perhaps a little too far, when he proposes to alleviate the sorrow felt for the loss of these architectural monuments of superstition, by reminding the antiquarian that Ruins inspire more lively sentiments of the sublime and beautiful than more perfect remains. This is a piece of ingenuity, but not of sound reasoning. It is rather a curious doctrine, that a Cathedral or Monastery does not look best with all its walls standing. – M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. I. p. 271.

8

It is worth while observing with what a total want of all Christian charity Knox speaks of the death of Mary of Guise. Alluding to her burial, he says: – “The question was moved of her burial: the preachers boldly gainstood that any superstitious rites should be used within that realm, which God of his mercy had begun to purge; and so was she clapped in a coffin of lead, and kept in the Castle from the 9th of June until the 19th of October, when she, by Pinyours, was carried to a ship, and so carried to France. What pomp was used there, we neither hear nor yet regard; but in it we see that she, that delighted that others lay without burial, got it neither so soon as she herself (if she had been of the counsel in her life) would have required it, neither yet so honourable in this realm as sometimes she looked for. It may perchance be a pronosticon, that the Guisean blood cannot have any rest within this realm.” Elsewhere he says – “Within few days after, began her belly and loathsome legs to swell, and so continued till that God did execute his judgment upon her.” And again – “God, for his mercy’s sake, rid us of the rest of the Guisean blood. Amen.” As Keith remarks, it was not by this spirit that the Apostles converted the world. – Keith, p. 129.

9

M’Crie’s Life of Knox, Vol. 1. p. 323.

10

By the kindness of Mr Brown of Glasgow, the ingenious delineator of the Royal Palaces of Scotland, we are enabled to give, as the vignette to the present Volume, a view of this Palace, exhibiting the window of the very room where Mary was born, which is the large window on the first floor, immediately under the flight of birds.

11

Sadler’s State Papers and Letters, vol. i. p. 263.

12

Whittaker, vol. iv. p. 144.

13

Mezeray, Histoire de France, tom. iii. p. 50.

14

Miss Benger’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 189, et seq.

15

Melville’s Memoirs of his own Life, p. 12.

16

In transcribing dates it may be proper to mention, that we do not observe the old division of the year. Down till 1563, the French began the year at Easter; but it was then altered to the 1st of January, by the Chancellor L’Hopital. In Scotland till 1599, and in England till 1751, the year began on the 25th of March. Thus, in all the State Papers and letters of the age, written between the 1st of January and the 25th of March, the dates invariably belong to what we should now consider the preceding year. It is useful to be aware of this fact; though it is unnecessary for a writer of the present day, to deviate from the established computation of time. – Anderson’s Collections, vol. i. – Preface, p. li.; and Laing, vol. i. p. 266.

17

Keith, p. 73.

18

Goodall’s Examination, vol. l. p. 159, et seq. The motto which Goodall put upon his title page,

“Pandere res altà terrâ et caligine mersas,”

he has in more than one instance amply justified.

19

Mezeray, Castelnau, Brantome, Thuanus, Chalmers, Miss Benger.

20

This picture originally belonged to Lord Robert Stuart, Earl of Orkney, one of Mary’s natural brothers, and is now in the possession of William Trail, Esq. of Woodwick, Orkney, into whose family it came, together with other relics of the Earl, by the marriage of an ancestor of Mr Trail, to one of his descendants. Vide Appendix A.

21

It is to the kindness of John Watson Gordon, Esq. deservedly one of the most eminent portrait-painters in Scotland, that we are indebted, both for the use of the painting from which the engraving has been made, and for several of the facts we have stated above. Mr Gordon has executed three copies of the picture – all of them exceedingly beautiful and accurate – possessing the merits, without any of the dusky dimness, which time has thrown over the original.

22

The coat of arms borne by Francis and Mary is worth describing. The coat was borne Baron and Femme; – The first contained the coat of the Dauphin, which took up the upper half of the shield, and consisted of the arms of France. The lower half was impaled quarterly. In one and four the arms of Scotland, and in two and three those of England. Over the whole was half an escutcheon the sinister half being obscured or cut off, to denote that the English crown was in the possession of another, to the bearer’s prejudice. Under the arms were four lines in French, thus wretchedly translated by Strype, in his “Annals of Queen Elizabeth.”

“The arms of Mary Queen Dauphiness of France,
The noblest lady in earth for till advance,
Of Scotland Queen and of England, also
Of France, as God hath providet it so.”

Keith, p. 114. Chalmers, vol. 2d, p. 413. A painting (probably a copy) containing these arms, and the above motto, is preserved in Mary’s apartments at Holyroodhouse.

23

Miss Benger, Vol. II. p. 7.

24

Miss Benger, vol. ii. p. 43.

25

Miss Benger erroneously antedates the death of Francis, on the 28th of November. See her Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 74. Chalmers, who is the very historian of dates, gives a copy of the inscription on the tomb of Francis, which of course settles the point, vol. ii. p. 124. Miss Benger does not appear to have seen this inscription.

26

Conæus in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 19.

27

Keith, p. 157 and 160.

28

Keith, p. 160, & seq.

29