"All the bravest and noblest gentlemen of France assembled themselves around the fairest of Queens and women," to give her a last proof of their love and respect. Among the Scottish nobles who formed part of her cortege on her way to Calais, was he who, a few years later, became the evil genius of her life--the brave and reckless Earl of Bothwell. In the following soliloquy, the unfortunate Earl, outlawed and pining away in a Danish prison, has been made to express his impressions of the young widow when he first knew her in France:--

"O Mary, Mary, even now,

Seared as I am to shame,

The blood grows thick around my heart

At utterance of thy name!

I see her as in by-gone days,

A widow, yet a child,

Within the fields of sunny France,

When heaven and fortune smiled.

*      *      *      *      *

O lovelier than the fairest flower

That ever bloomed on green,

Was she, the darling of the land,

The young and spotless queen.

The sweet, sweet smile upon her lips,

Her eyes so kind and clear,

The magic of her gentle voice,

That even now I hear!

And nobles knelt, and princes bent,

Before her as she came;

A queen by gift of nature she,

More than a queen in name."[#]

[#] "Bothwell," by William Edmondstoune Aytoun.

On the 15th of August, 1561, having bid farewell to her uncles, the Cardinal and the Duke of Guise, to her other relatives and the large number of friends and admirers who accompanied her to the water's edge, she embarked at Calais and turned with a heavy heart to her new home, where her mother, only a few months before, had been denied a grave; where the death of her husband had been made the subject of rude jibes, and where she herself had been denounced by the leader of the new religion, as another Jezebel. France may be said in the meantime to have been in mourning; and the words of the poet Ronsard, poetry though they be, express a feeling that was common to the nation.

"Ho! Scotland," he writes, "I would that thou mightest wander like Delos on the face of the sea, or sink to its profoundest depths, so that the sails of thy bright queen, vainly striving to seek her realm, might suddenly turn and bear her back to her fair Duchy of Tourraine."

Six days after her departure, having evaded, under cover of a dense fog, the English cruisers sent out to intercept her, she landed at Leith, and proceeded to the Royal Palace of Holyrood at Edinburgh.

CHAPTER IV.

FACING TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND.

The news of the unexpected arrival of the young Queen, who had come unattended by armed force, and had committed herself to the chivalry of the nation, awakened a degree of enthusiasm even in the stern "professors" of the Congregation. Feelings of loyalty to a long line of monarchs die hard in the human breast, and especially was this so in those days when the monarch, in the estimation of his people, stood for something more than the chairman of a national committee; and the mass of the Scottish people, whether adherents of the old religion, or professors of the new, saw in the fair Queen who had come amongst them the representative of a line of brave Sovereigns, around whom their forefathers had fought and died for national independence, and whose deeds of bravery were fresh in Scottish song and tradition, indeed, the influence which Mary wielded over the people was greater than could well be expected. Shortly after her arrival, a number of the most zealous nobles of the Congregation came to Edinburgh to help Knox banish the Mass from her household. But, after a few visits to Holyrood, their fierce fervour disappeared. "I have been here now for five days," remarked one of them to a friend, "and at the first I heard every man say, 'Let us hang the priest,' but after that they had been twice or thrice in the Abbey, all that fervency passed. I think there be some enchantment whereby men are bewitched." And in truth it can be said that, with scarcely an exception, no one ever came directly under the influence of Mary Stewart without being, in some degree, impressed in her favour.

But in spite of the favourable signs that were manifested on her arrival, no grave observer could contemplate her environment and fail to foresee discord, rebellion and her almost inevitable overthrow. There were the fierce nobles who, a few months before, had been in arms against her mother, and who were enjoying the property of the Church, which it was now their interest to combat. There were the stern "Professors" of the Congregation, of which Knox was the life and force, who considered her an idolatress, and, consequently--according to the Jewish criminal code, which they held in special esteem--deserving of death. There was her half-brother, Lord James, gruff, reticent and ambitious, watching for a turn of affairs that might bring him to the throne; and there, too, was Elizabeth, with her able and unscrupulous Secretary, Cecil, who had already fomented and supported rebellion in Scotland, and even now had emissaries at work for the overthrow of the young northern Queen. Worst, perhaps of all, Mary had very little counsel on which she could rely. Allowing for poetical exaggeration, a good deal of truth is contained in the words of the Jacobite bard:--

"She stood alone without a friend,

On whom her arm might lean,

No true and trusty counsellors

Were there to serve their Queen;

But moody men, with sullen looks,

And faces hard and keen."

 

Mary was not long in Scotland before her courage was put to the test. It had been stipulated by Lord James that she should be free to have Mass in her own house. It would seem, however, that the zealots of the Congregation had little expected that in face of their strong opposition to her religion, the young Queen would venture to practice it on her return. If so, they miscalculated the extent to which she had inherited the high spirit and unflinching courage of her bravest ancestors.

The first Sunday after her arrival, she ordered Mass to be celebrated in the Chapel-Royal of Holyrood. A party of the Congregation, headed by Patrick, Lord Lindsay, rushed into the apartment and attacked the Chaplain. The Queen immediately published a proclamation to the effect that she did not intend to interfere with the form of religion she had found established in Scotland, and that she commanded her subjects not to molest any of her