“it is the curse of kings to be attended by slaves, that take their humors for a warrant to break within the bloody house of life; and, on the winking of authority, to understand a law; to know the meaning of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns more upon humor than advised respect.”—king john.
it was a dark and stormy night without, such as is not unfrequent even during the height of summer, under the changeable influences of the scottish climate. the west wind, charged with moisture collected from the vast expanse of ocean it had traversed since last it had visited the habitations of man, rose and sank in wild and melancholy cadences; now howling violently, as it dashed the rain in torrents against the rattling casements; now lulling till its presence could be traced alone in the small, shrill murmur, which has been compared so aptly to the voice of a spirit. the whole vault of heaven was wrapped in blackness, of that dense and smothering character which strikes the mind as pertaining rather to the gloom of a closed chamber than to that of a midnight sky.
yet within the halls of holyrood neither storm nor darkness had any influence on the excited spirits of the guests who were collected there to celebrate, with minstrelsey and dance, the marriage of sebastian. hundreds of lights flashed from the tapestried walls; wreaths of the choicest flowers were twined around the columns; rich odors floated on the air; and the voluptuous swell of music entranced a hundred young and happy hearts with its intoxicating sympathies. all that there was of beautiful and chivalrous in old dunedin thronged to the court of its enchanting queen on that eventful evening; and it appeared338 for once as though the hate of party and the fierce zeal of clashing creeds had for a time agreed to sink their differences in the gay whirl of merriment. the stern and solemn leaders of the covenant relaxed the austerity of their frown; the enthusiastic chieftains of the romish faith were content to mingle in the dance with those whom they would have met as gladly in the fray.
with even more than her accustomed grace, brightest and most bewitching where all were bright and lovely, did mary glide among her high-born visiters; no shade of sorrow dimmed that transparent brow, or clouded the effulgence of that dazzling smile; it was an evening of conciliation and rejoicing—of forgiveness for the past, and hope rekindled for the future. there was no distinction of manner as she passed from one to another of the animated groups that conversed, or danced, or hung in silent rapture on the musicians’ strains, on every side. her tone was no less bland, as she addressed the gloomy morton, or the dark-browed lindesay, but now returned from exile in the sister-kingdom, than as she turned to her gayer and more fitting associates. never was the influence of mary’s beauty more effective than on that occasion; never did her unaffected grace, her sweet address, her courtesy bestowed alike on all, exert a mightier influence over the minds of men than on the very evening when her hopes were about to be for ever blighted, her happiness extinguished, her very reputation blasted, by the villany of false friends, and the violence of open foes.
the weak and vicious darnley yet lingered on his bed of sickness, but with the vigor of health many of the darker shades of his character had passed away; and mary had again watched beside the bed of him whose foul suspicions and unmanly violence—no less than his scandalous neglect of her unrivalled charms, his low and infamous amours, his studied hatred of all whom she delighted to honor—had almost alienated the affections339 of that warm heart which once had beat so tenderly, so devotedly, and, had he but deserved its constancy, so constantly for him. oh, how exquisite a thing is woman’s love! how beautiful, how strange a mystery, is woman’s heart! ’twas but a little month ago that she had almost hated. neglect had chilled the stream of her affections: that he whom she had made a king, whom she had loved with such total devotion of heart and mind—that he should repay her benefits with outrage, her affections with cold, chilling, insolent disdain—these were the thoughts that had worked her brain to the very verge of madness and of crime.
the “glorious, rash, and hazardous”f young earl of orkney had ever in these hours of bitter anguish been summoned, she knew not how, to her imagination: the warm yet delicate attentions, the reverential deference to her slightest wish, the dignified and chaste demeanor, through which gleamed ever and anon some flash of chivalrous affection—some token that in the recesses of his heart he worshipped the woman as fervently as he served the sovereign truly; the overmastering passion always apparent, but so apparent that it seemed involuntarily present; the eye dwelling for ever on her features, yet sinking modestly to earth, as shamed by his own boldness, if haply it met hers; the hand that trembled as it performed its office; the voice that faltered as it answered to the voice he seemed to love so dearly—all these, all these, had they been multiplied a hundred-fold, and aided by the deepest magic, had effected nothing to wean her heart from darnley, had not his own infatuated cruelty furnished the strongest argument in favor of the young and noble bothwell. as it was, harassed by the deepest wrongs from him who was most bound to cherish and support her, and assailed by the allurements of one who coupled to a beauty equal to that of angels a depth of purpose and dissimulation340 worthy of the fiend, mary had tottered on the precipice’s verge! darnley fell sick, and she was saved! him whom she had almost learned to hate while he had rioted in all the insolence of manly strength and beauty, she now adored when he was stretched languid and helpless on the bed of anguish. she had rushed to his envenomed chamber, she had braved the perils of his contagious malady; her hand had soothed his burning brow, her lip had tasted the potion which his feverish palate had refused; day and night she had watched over him as a mother watches over her sick infant, in mingled agonies of hope and terror; she had marked the black sweat gathering on his brow, and the film veiling his bright eye, and she had felt that her very being was wound up in the weal or wo of him whose death, one little month before, she would have hailed as a release from misery. she had noted the dawn of his recovery, she had fainted from excess of happiness; she had pardoned all, all his past misdoings; she was again the doting, faithful, single-hearted wife of her repentant henry.g
f throgmorton’s letter to elizabeth.
g knox and buchanan would make it appear that his reconciliation was insincere. but knox and buchanan wrote under the influence of political and religious hostility, and could never allow a single merit to mary. it is a sound rule that every mortal is innocent till proved guilty.
now in the midst of song, and revelry, and mirth, while the gay masquers passed in gorgeous procession before her eyes, her mind was far away in the chamber of her recovered lord, within the solitary kirk of field. the masque had ended, and the hall was cleared; the wedding-posset passed around, beakers were brimmed, and amid the clang of music the toast went round—“health to sebastian and his bride!” the hall was cleared for the dance: a hundred brilliant couples arose to lead the branle; the minstrels tuned their prelude; when the fair young bride, blushing at the boldness of her own request, entreated that her grace would make her condescension yet more perfect by joining in that graceful measure which none could341 lead so gracefully.
if there was one failing in the character of mary, which tended above all others to render her an object for unjust suspicions, and a mark for cruel reverses, it was an inability to refuse aught that might confer pleasure on any individual, however low in station—a gentle failing, if it indeed be one, but not the less pernicious to the fortunes of all, and above all of kings. with that ineffable smile beaming upon her face, she rose; and as she rose, bothwell sprang forth, and in words of deep humility, but tones of deeper passion, besought the queen to make her slave the most happy, the most exalted of mankind, by yielding to him her inestimable hand, even for the space of one short dance.
for a single moment mary paused; but it was destined that she should be the victim of her confidence, and she yielded. never, never did a more perfect pair stand forth in lordly hall, or on the emerald turf, than mary stuart and her destroyer. both in the flush and flower of gorgeous youth: she invested with beauty such as few before or since have ever had to show, with grace, and symmetry, and all that nameless something which goes yet further to excite the admiration, and call forth the love of men, than loveliness itself; he strong, yet elegant in strength—proud, yet with that high and spiritual pride which had nothing offensive in his display—taller and more stately than the noblest barons of the court—they were indeed a pair unmatched amid ten thousand; so rich in natural advantages, so exquisite in personal attractions, that the tasteful splendor of their habits was as little marked as is the golden halo which encompasses but adds no glory to the sainted heads of that delightful painter whose name so aptly chimes with the peculiar sweetness of his sublime creations.
even the iron brow of ruthven—for he, too, was there—relaxed as, leaning on her partner’s extended hand, she passed342 him with a smile of pardon, and he muttered to his dark comrade, lindesay of the byres—“she were in sooth a most fair creature, if that her mind might match the beauties of its mansion.” as he spoke, the measured symphony rang out, and in slow order the dancers moved forward; anon the measure quickened, and the motions of the young and beautiful obeyed its impulses. it was a scene more like some fairy dream than aught of hard, terrestrial reality: the waving plumes, the glittering jewels, the gorgeous robes, and, above all, the lovely forms, which rather imparted their own brilliancy to these adornments than borrowed anything from them, combined to form a picture such as imagination can scarcely depict, much less experience suggest, from aught beheld in ballrooms of the present day, wherein the stiff and graceless costume of modern times is but a poor apology for the majestic bravery of the sixteenth century.
suddenly, while all were glancing round in the swiftest mazes of the dance, those who stood by observed the blood flash with startling splendor over brow, neck, and bosom of the youthful queen; nay, her very arms, white in their wonted hue as the snow upon shehallion, crimsoned with the violence of her emotions. her eyes sparkled, her bosom rose and fell almost convulsively, her lips parted, but it seemed as though her words were choked by agitation. for a single instant she stood still; then bursting through the throng, she sank nearly insensible upon one of the many cushioned seats that girded the hall; but, rallying her spirits, she murmured something of the heat and the unusual exercise, drained the goblet of pure water presented by the hand of orkney, and again resumed her station in the dance.
“pardon, pardon, i beseech you,” whispered the impassioned tones of the tempter—“pardon, sweet sovereign, the boldness that was born but of a moment’s madness. believe me—i343 would tear my heart from out my bosom, did it cherish one thought that could offend my mistress—my honored, my adored—
“hush! oh, hush! for my sake, bothwell—for my sake, if for naught else, be silent! i do believe that you mean honestly and well; but words like these ’tis madness in you to utter, and sin in me to hear them! bethink you, sir,” she continued, gaining strength as she proceeded, and speaking so low that no ear but his might catch a solitary sound amid the quick rustle of the “many twinkling feet,” and the full concert—“bethink you! you address a wife—a wedded, loyal wife—the wife of your lord, your king. i know that you are my most faithful servant, my most trusted friend; i know that these words, which sound so wildly, are not to be weighed in their full sense, but as a servant’s homage to his liege-lady: yet think what yon stern knox would deem, think of the wrath of darnley—”
“if there were naught more powerful than darnley’s wrath,” he muttered, in the notes of deep determination, “to bar me from my towering hopes, then were i blest beyond all hopes of earth, of heaven—supremely blest!”
“what mean you, sir? we understand you not! what should there be more powerful than the wrath of thy lawful sovereign? speak; i would not doubt you, yet methinks your words sound strangely. what be these towering hopes of thine? pray god they tower not too high for honesty or honor! say on, we do command thee!”
“i will say on, fair queen,” he replied, in a voice trembling as it were with the fear of offending and the anxiety of love—“i will say on, so you will hear me to the end, nor doubt the most devoted of your slaves!”
“hear you?” she replied, considerably softened by his humility, “when did ever mary stuart refuse to hear the meanest344 of her subjects, much less a trusted and a valued friend, as thou hast ever been to her, as thou wilt ever be to her—wilt thou not, bothwell?”
there was a heavenly purity, a confidence in his integrity, and a firm and full reliance on her own dignity, in every word she uttered, that might have converted the wildest libertine from his career of sin; that might have confirmed the wariest and most subtle spirit that its guilty craft could never prevail against a heart fortified against its attacks by purity and by the stronger and more holy influences of wedded love; but on the fixed purpose, on the interminable pride, the desperate passion, and the unscrupulous will of bothwell, every warning was lost.
“i have adored you,” he said, slowly and impressively—“adored you, not as a queen, but as a woman. mary, angelic mary, pardon—pity—and oh, love me! you do, you do already love me! i have read it in your eye, i have marked it in your flushing cheek, in your heaving bosom! if this night you were free, would you not, sweet lady, lovely queen, would you not reward the adoration, the honest adoration of your devoted bothwell?”
“stand back, my lord of bothwell!” cried the now indignant queen, “stand back! your words are madness! nay, but we will be heard,” she continued, with increasing impetuosity, as he endeavored again to speak. “thinkest thou, vain lord, that i—i, mary of france and scotland—because i have favored and distinguished a subject, who, god aid me, merited not favor nor distinction—thinkest thou that i, a queen anointed—a mother and a wife—that i could love so wantonly as to descend to thee? back, sir, i say! and if i punish not at once thy daring insolence, ’tis that thy past services, in some sort, nullify thy present boldness. oh, my lord!” she proceeded, in a softer tone, and a big tear-drop trembled in her bright eye as she spoke, “mary has miseries enough, that thou shouldst345 spare to add thy quota to the general ingratitude. if thou didst love me, as thou sayest, thy love would be displayed as that of a zealous votary to the shrine at which he worships; as that of the magi bending before their particular star—not as that of a wild and wicked wanton to a frail, fickle woman!”
it may be that the words with which mary concluded her reproof kindled again the hope which had well nigh passed away from bothwell’s breast.
“nay, mary, say not thus. do i not know thy trials? have i not marked thy miseries? and will i not avenge them? if thou wert free—did i say, if? by heaven, fair queen, those locks of thine, that flow so unrestrained down that most glorious neck, are not more free than thou art! did i not hear thy cry for vengeance on the slaughterers of hapless rizzio? did i not hear, and have i not achieved the deed that secures at once thy freedom and thy vengeance?”
the spell was broken on the instant: the soft, the tender-hearted, the most gentle of women, was aroused almost to frenzy. the blood rushed in torrents to her princely brow, and left it again pale as the sculptured marble, but to return once more in deeper hues of crimson. her eyes flashed with unnatural brightness; her bosom heaved and fell like that of a young priestess laboring with the throes of prophetic inspiration; she shook the tresses, he had dared to praise, back from her lovely face, and stamping her delicate foot in the passion of the moment on the oaken floor—
“a guard!” she cried, in notes that might have vied with the clangor of a trumpet, so shrilly did they pierce the ears of all; “a guard for my lord of bothwell!”
had the thunder of heaven darted its sulphurous and scathing bolt into the midst of that assembly, a greater change its terrors could not have effected than did that thrilling cry. a hundred rapiers flashed in the bright torchlight, as with bent brows and346 angry voices the barons of the realm rushed to the aid of their liege-lady. an air of cool defiance sat on the massive forehead of the culprit; his eye was fixed upon the queen in sorrow, as it would seem, rather than in anger; his sword lay quietly in his scabbard, although there were a hundred there with weapons thirsting for his blood, and hearts burning with the insatiable hate of ancient feuds. murray and morton, speaking eagerly and even sternly to the queen, urged his immediate seizure; and the gray-haired duke of lennox, clutching his poniard’s hilt with the palsied gripe of eighty years, awaited but a sign to slay, he knew not and he recked not why, the ancient foeman of his race.
but so it was not fated! before a word was spoken, the deep and sullen roar as of an earthquake burst upon their ears, and stunned their very hearts; a second din, as of some mighty tower rushing from its base, succeeded, ere the casements had ceased to rattle with the shock of the first.
“god of my fathers!” shouted murray, “what means that din? treason, my lords, treason! look to the queen—secure the traitor! thou, duke of lennox, with thy followers, haste straight to the kirk of field! without, there—let my trumpets sound to horse! by him that made me,” he continued, “the populace are rising!”—for the deep swell of voices, that rose without, announced the presence of a mighty multitude.
in an instant the vaulted arches of the palace echoed with the flourished cadences of the royal trumpets, the ringing steps of steel-clad men, the tramp of hoofs in the courtyard, the gathering cries of the followers of each fierce baron, succeeding wildly to the soft breathings of minstrelsey and song. at this instant murray had resolved himself to act, and, with his hand upon the pommel of his sword, slowly but resolutely stepped forward. “yield thee!” he said, in stern, low tones;347 “yield thee, my lord of bothwell! hence from this presence thou canst not pass until all this night’s strange occurrences be fully manifested; ay, and if there be guilt—as i misdoubt me much there is—till it be fearfully avenged!”
the touch of murray on his shoulder, lightly as it fell, and grave as were the words of that high baron, aroused the reckless disposition of bothwell almost to madness. “thou liest, lord!” he shouted, in the fierce impulse of the moment—“thou liest, if thou dare to couple the name of guilt with bothwell! forego thy hold, or perish!”—and his dagger’s blade was seen slowly emerging from its sheath, while his clinched teeth and the starting veins of his broad forehead spoke volumes of the bitterness of his wrath. another second, and blood, the blood of scotland’s noblest, would have been poured forth like water, and in the presence of the queen; the destinies of a great kingdom would have perchance been altered, and the history of ages changed, all by the madness of a single moment. in the fearful crisis, a wild shriek was heard from the upper end of the hall, to which the ladies of the court had congregated, round the queen, like the songsters of spring when the dark pinions of the hawk are casting down a shadow of terror on their peaceful groves.
“help! help!—her grace is dying!” and, in truth, it did seem as though she were about to pass away. better, a thousand times better, and happier, had it been for her, to have then died quietly in the palace of her forefathers, with the nobles of her land around her, than to have borne, for many an after-year, the chilling miseries which were showered by pitiless fortune on her head, till that most fatal hour of her tragic life arrived, and mary was at length at rest!
murray relaxed his hold, turned on his heel, and strode abruptly to the elevated dais, on which the queen had sunk in worn-out nature’s weariness. for a minute’s space bothwell348 glared on him as he strode away, like a tiger balked of his dear revenge. it was most evident he doubted—doubted whether he should set all, even now, upon a cast, strike down a foeman in the very fortress of his power, and if he must die, like the crushed wasp, sting home in dying. prudence, however, conquered: he also turned upon his heel, and with a glance of the deepest scorn and hatred on the baffled lords, who, in the absence of their master-spirit, had lost all unison, stalked slowly through the portal of the hall, and disappeared.
before ten seconds had elapsed, the rapid clatter of hoofs, the jingling of mail, and the war-cry—“a bothwell! ho! a bothwell!” proclaimed that he had escaped the toils, and was surrounded by his faithful followers.
when murray reached the couch on which the queen was extended, gasping as though in the last extremity, her case indeed was pitiable. her long locks had burst from their confinement, and flowed over her person like a veil; her corsage had been cut asunder by the damsels of her court, and her bosom, bare in its unspeakable beauty, was disclosed to the licentious gaze of the haughty nobles. an angle of the couch, as she had fallen, had grazed her temple, and the blood streamed down her cheek and neck, giving, by the contrast of its dark crimson, an ashy, deathlike whiteness to her whole complexion.
“ha!” he whispered, with deep emotions, “what means this? back, back, my lords, for shame, if not for pity! would ye gaze upon your sovereign, in the abandonment of utter grief, as though she were a peasant-quean? stand back, i say, and let the halls be cleared; and hark thee, paris,” he continued, as a cringing, terrified-looking frenchman entered the apartment, “bid some one call galozzi hither: the poison-vending, cozening tuscan hath skill at least, and it shall go hardly with him so he exert it not! but ha! what ails the man? st. andrew, he will faint! what ails thee, craven? speak, speak,349 or i shake the coward soul from out thy carcass!”—and he shook the trembling servitor fiercely by the throat.
“the king—the king—” he faltered forth at length, terrified yet more by the wrath of murray than by the scene which he had witnessed.
“what of the king, thou dastard? speak—i say, what of henry darnley?”
“murdered, your highness—murdered!”
“nay, thou art made to say it!”
“he speaks too truly, murray,” cried morton, entering, with his bold visage blanched, and his dark locks bristling with unwonted terror; “the king is murdered—foully, most foully murdered!”
“by the villain bothwell!” muttered murray, between his hard-set teeth; “but he shall rue the deed! but say on, morton, say on: how knowest thou this? say on—and you, ladies, attend the queen.”
“i saw it, murray—with these eyes i saw it—the cold, naked, strangled corpse—flung, like a carrion-carcass, on the garden-path; and the kirk of field a pile of smoking and steaming ruins—blown up with gunpowder, to give an air of accident to this accursed treason. i tell you, man,” he continued, as he saw murray about to speak, “i tell you that i saw, in that drear garden, cast like a murrained sheep upon a dike, all that remained of henry darnley!”
“’tis false!” shrieked the wretched mary, starting to her feet, with the wild glare of actual insanity in her eye; “who saith i slew him? henry darnley! ’sdeath, lords!—the king, i say—the king! now, by my halydom, he shall be king of scotland! dead—dead! who said the earl of orkney was no more? faugh! how the sulphur steams around us! it chokes—it smothers! traitor, false traitor! know, earl, i will arraign thee. what! kill a king? whisper soft, low words to a queen? hoa! this is practice, my lord duke, foul practice;350 and deeply shall you rue it if you but hurt a hair of darnley!—nay, henry, sweet henry, frown not on me! oh! never woman loved as i love thee, my darnley! rizzio—ha! what traitor spoke of rizzio? but think not of it, henry: the faithful servant is lost, but ’twas not thou that did it. lo! how dark morton glares on me! back, ruthven, fiend! wouldst slay me? but i forgive thee all—all—henry darnley, all! live—only live to bless my longing sight! no! no!” she shrieked more wildly, “he is not dead! to arms! what, ho!—to arms! a king, and none to rescue him! to arms, i say! i will myself to arms! fetch forth my milan harness; saddle me rosabelle! french—paris, aho! my petronels! and ye, why do ye linger, wenches—seyton, carmichael, fleming?—my head-gear and my robes! the queen goes forth to-day! to horse, and to the rescue!”
she made a violent effort to rush forward, but staggered, and if her brother had not received her in his arms, she would have fallen again to the earth. “bear her hence, ladies; bear her to her chamber!—thou hast a heavy weird—poor sister!—what ponder you so, morton? you would not mark her words: ’tis sheer distraction—the distraction of most utter sorrow!”
“distraction! i say ay! but sorrow, no! sorrow takes it not on thus wildly. it savors more of guilt, lord murray—dark, damning, bloody guilt! heard ye not what she said of orkney? distraction, but no sorrow: guilt, believe me, guilt!”
“not for my life would i believe it, nor must thou: if morton and murray hunt henceforth in couples—hark in thine ear!”—and he whispered, glancing his eyes uneasily around, as though the very stones might bear his words to other listeners. a grim smile passed athwart morton’s visage; he bowed his head in token of assent. they passed forth from the banquet-hall together, and mary was left to her misery.
