There is one saint in the calendar, who at least has never lacked worshippers; at whose shrine the strictest sectarians, the bitterest Reformers, have never failed to lay their votive offerings, and in whose train shine myriads of the brightest and fairest beings we can picture to ourselves, the only angels that gladden the sight of us adoring mortals here below. Yes, blooming maidens, buxom widows, constituting a phalanx beautiful to look upon, as it is dangerous to deal with, have for centuries conspired to do honour to sweet St Valentine, and we can only regret that the anniversary of his martyrdom (kissed to death, we have always been taught to believe, and buried by turtle-doves, under a shower of orange-blossoms) should occur at a season of the year when in our own climate the usual concomitants of frost and snow seem so inappropriate to the indolent and relaxing amusement of love-making. We have no reason to believe that the 14th of February 1564, afforded any contrast to the usual boisterous inclemency of a Scottish spring, or that Queen Mary and her maidens, looking from the battlements of Wemyss Castle on the leaden waves of the stormy Firth, had any sunshine to gladden them save that which originated in their own breasts.

But the Queen at least was in the height of good-humour and good spirits; though subject to occasional fits of depression, Mary’s usual state of mind was kindly and cheerful; nay, when in some rare interval of peace she was relieved from the pressure of actual distress, or the anticipation of impending calamity, her gay and cordial manner shed an influence of happiness over all who came within its range; and even Randolph—busy, intriguing, heartless, cynical Randolph—could not but admit that ‘this Queen,’ as he calls her, ‘is a divine thing, far excelling any (our own most worthy only excepted) that ever was made since the first framing of mankind.’

Behold, then, Mary Stuart, and her maidens sitting at work in a chamber overlooking the stormy Firth from the seaward turret of Wemyss Castle. Without, the leaden hues of sea and sky form a grand though savage contrast to the white snow-mantle which wraps the undulating shores of Fife, while the opposite Lothian coast stands out, as it were, into the water with the distinct outline and startling appearance of proximity peculiar to an atmosphere charged with coming snow, and a wind from the north-east.

Within, an old oak-panelled chamber, hung here and there with faded tapestry, once of priceless value, but now frayed and worn and coming rapidly into rags; grotesque, gaunt ornaments are strewed about the room, the spoils of predatory warfare on the Danish coast, brought hither generations back by stern Sir Michael, the first Lord Admiral of Scotland. Strange-looking arms and a ponderous axe or two are not in character with the interior of a lady’s bower, nor do the grim figures carved in wood that support the chimney on either side of the high wide fireplace, the least resemble such cupids and other gentle symbols as would be appropriate to the company and the occasion.

Bending over her work, the Queen’s blushes come and go with a degree of graceful embarrassment that is not unmarked by her attendants. These are around her as usual, and, like their mistress, occupy their fingers with considerable energy, and doubtless allow their thoughts to stray far and wide during the task. We of the sterner sex have probably not the faintest idea of the comfort derived by woman from her natural weapon, the needle.

It is well known, we are told, to physiologists, and the fact is not lost sight of in our treatment of the insane, that manual labour requiring a moderate amount of attention, such as the prosecution of a handicraft, has a remarkably composing tendency on the mind; but carpentering is perhaps the only male pursuit which combines the exact proportions of physical and mental exertion supposed to produce such beneficial results. Few men, however, are carpenters, whereas, speaking in general times, all women can sew, and the very act of stitching we believe to be a complete and unfailing anodyne. The delicate fingers bend unconsciously to their task; the white hand flies to and fro as the dove flew round the Ark seeking the olive-branch on which it should find rest at last; the gentle head bends lower and lower, while thoughts, humbled by sorrow and chastened by resignation, wander further and further away. Presently the tears are dropping fast upon the pattern, be it the beads of a queen’s embroidery or the hem of a peasant’s smock; but like summer showers they do but clear the sky when they are over, and ere the hair is shook back, and the loving face looks up to thread the needle afresh, all is sunshine and peace once more.

Perhaps no woman of any degree had oftener occasion to practise this healing occupation than ill-fated Mary Stuart, destined to a pre-eminence in suffering as in beauty.

The only male attendant on the Queen was David Riccio. Splendidly dressed in the thickest velvet that could be procured, that poor little Italian shivered in a corner of the ample fireplace, preserving, to his credit be it said, his southern good-humour even in the rigours of a cold, raw climate, which, to use an expression from his own land, seemed ‘to loosen every tooth in his head.’

Three of the maids-of-honour were unusually silent and depressed, Mary Seton alone incorrigible as usual.

A portentous shiver from Riccio, which he tried in vain to repress, made the Queen look up from her embroidery. She could not but smile at the chattering teeth and pinched features of her ungainly secretary, yet there was a slight tone of irritation in her voice as she said—

‘Heap more wood on the fire, if you are so cold, Signior David; yet methinks the weather hath moderated since morning. It cannot be so bad even now on the landward side; but the wind whistles round this old keep of my brother’s till we might fancy ourselves a plump of wild-fowl cowering together for shelter on the Bass.’

Her eye happening to rest on Mistress Beton while she spoke, that demure lady, who was plunged in a profound fit of abstraction, felt herself called upon to reply, and could find nothing more apposite to say than—

‘Bitter weather indeed, your Grace, and threatening worse than ever over the Firth. Heaven help all poor travellers by land and sea!’ she added piously, drawing at the same time her mantle closer round her shoulders, to the utter destruction of her stupendous ruff, a neglect of which ornamental structure always denoted in Mary Beton extreme discomposure of mind.

‘Psha! child!’ said the Queen, impatiently. ‘Travellers are not so faint-hearted. What say you, Signior David? We wot of some that would ride through fire and water at our behest. Is not that the gallop of a horse I hear even now along the causeway?’

‘I pray you patience, madam!’ answered the cautious Italian, seeing that the Queen had risen from her chair, and was pacing up and down in obvious expectation. ‘No traveller that your Grace wotteth of can be on this side the Firth to-day. Spurs are but steel; horses are but bone and sinew; riders but flesh and blood. There can be no arrival at the earliest for twenty hours. I have myself wagered a collar of pearls and rubies with Mistress Seton.’

‘And lost! and lost! and lost!’ exclaimed that voluble young lady, dancing rather than walking into the room from which she had not been five minutes absent. ‘Even now the portcullis is up, and I saw him myself ride into the courtyard from the passage-window. Good lack, madam, such a tall cavalier! and his poor horse looked so tired! Not a living creature with him neither, and he called for a cup of wine before ever his spurs had touched the pavement.’

Mary Stuart’s cheek turned very red, and her breath came quick and short! the woman could not but appreciate the compliment, however much the Queen must study to conceal her feelings. This looked like an earnest wooer in good truth; no laggard could thus have distanced his followers and arrived in such an incredibly short space of time from the southern shore. Aye! there was more lost and won on that ride of young Lord Darnley’s than the collar of pearls and rubies which David Riccio delivered the same evening with such a good grace to saucy Mistress Seton. But the Queen’s innate dignity soon reasserted itself. Signing to her ladies to attend on her, she paced majestically from the room.

‘It would ill become us,’ said she, ‘to keep one waiting for an audience who hath shown such loyal diligence in obeying our summons; we will receive our guest in the great hall of the castle. Do you, Signior Riccio, apprise him that we are ready to accept his homage. Mary Carmichael and Mary Hamilton attend us for a few minutes to our tiring-room; we will all meet again here, and proceed at once to the hall.’

Mary seldom spoke in such a measured dignified tone. It may be that this stately manner covered some little trepidation and heart-beating; it may be that the Queen felt timid and bashful as the meekest village maiden. At least it was remarkable that the most beautiful woman in Europe should have thought it necessary to revise her toilet, and add to her attractions before receiving the homage of her vassal and kinsman.

It was no ordinary phalanx of beauty that Darnley had to confront when the venerable seneschal of Wemyss Castle ushered him into the lofty hall, at the end of which, on a portion raised by one step above the level of the floor, was placed the royal lady to whom he had dared to aspire as his bride; her exquisite loveliness only enhanced by the presence of the four prettiest women in Scotland who stood behind her. But ‘faint heart never won fair lady,’ and Darnley’s was by no means one of those dispositions which are prone to fail from a retiring modesty and too low an estimate of their own advantages. Besides, he was playing a great stake, and playing it with all the reckless audacity of a gambler.

Young as he was, he well knew that the prize now before him represented not only the Majesty of Scotland, but possibly, nay, in all human probability, the eventual succession to the English throne. It was this contingency which made Elizabeth so jealous of all matrimonial overtures to her beautiful cousin; it was this which caused Cecil and Throckmorton, and their agent Randolph, to lay their cunning heads together and devise means for amusing the Scottish Queen with a procession of suitors, none of whom were ever intended to be more than the puppets of the moment, each to prevent the attainment of his object by the other.

The accomplished Warwick, the manly-looking, weak-hearted Norfolk, nay, the prime favourite of the English Queen herself, the selfish, handsome, and utterly unscrupulous Leicester, were successively put forward as appropriate sharers of Mary Stuart’s throne and masters of her hand. But no sooner did the hapless object of all this intrigue and duplicity show the slightest preference for one over the other, the faintest inclination to accede to wishes which seemed so candidly expressed, than instantly, like some scene in a masquerade, the performers all changed characters at once. Elizabeth became the stern monitress, Randolph the delicate adviser, and the belted Earls and noble Dukes, no longer humble suitors and devoted champions of their idol, cooled at a breath into very coy and somewhat unwilling parties to an engagement of political expediency, only binding so long as it received encouragement at Greenwich or Whitehall. Thus was a woman’s heart made an object of cruel traffic and shameful double-dealing, none the less disgraceful because its possession implied the occupancy of a throne. Some day, perhaps, the world may be brought to see that even in the highest places expediency can never justify heartlessness or crime, that not only is ‘honesty the best policy,’ but that chivalrous unselfishness and frank defiance of evil are the surest beacons to success.

In the meantime, it is sad to think, that the life’s happiness and the life itself of Mary Stuart were pitilessly sacrificed by one of her own blood and her own sex. Surely, since the serpent, woman has had no such bitter enemy as woman.

Darnley, put forward at eighteen as the rival of so many distinguished nobles, entered on the contest with all the wilfulness of a Stuart, and all the joyous temerity of a boy. Though a tool in the hands of his seniors, it must doubtless have seemed to the adventurous young nobleman no unwelcome task to woo his beautiful sovereign—the kinswoman whom he had already once seen when they were both mere children, but whose charms even at that early age he had not yet forgotten. Few men would refuse the hand of a queen, even if she were an ugly one; what shall we say of a proposal to try his fortune with such a paragon as Mary Stuart? It was no wonder the lightsome young wooer rode horse after horse to death as he posted northward in the direction to which his star beckoned him; no wonder that he should arrive at Wemyss Castle all alone, far ahead of his scattered escort; no wonder that he should advance into Mary’s presence, under all the disadvantages of haste, fatigue, and travel-stained riding-gear, with the gallant air of a gay young knight who goes forth to conquer, rather than that of a slave who comes to wear a chain. As he walked up the hall, his step was firm, his head erect, and his eye bright and open as that of a man who sees his destiny beckoning him forward fairer and fairer, more and more promising as he approaches.

The colour was very deep in Mary’s cheek, and her eyes were fastened to the ground while he drew near, yet she stole a good look at him somehow, too, or she would not have been a woman. What she saw might have satisfied even her fastidious taste.

Darnley was very tall and slim, but his limbs were so well-proportioned, his hands and feet so small and beautifully shaped, that his excessive height only gave him an air of peculiar grace and distinction above ordinary men. Even in the riding-dress of the period, though we may be sure that the handsome young noble wore one of the richest material, and of the most tasteful fashion such a costume allowed, he betrayed those habits of refinement almost bordering on coxcombry, which, when they accompany a fine manly person, have such an attraction for the other sex. All the details of his toilet had been carefully attended to before he started, and disordered as he now was, at least on his exterior, nature had written gentleman in characters that could not be mistaken. Alas! that her pen can sometimes only trace skin deep.

His face, too, was in accordance with the high-bred beauty of his form. The line of features was soft and delicate as a woman’s, the dark eyes shone out soft and tender from beneath a pair of pencilled eyebrows, the dark hair clustered in silken curls round a fair and open brow, pure and unruffled in the calm spring-time of youth, and though the mouth was that of a voluptuary rather than a hero, the small teeth were so white and regular, the lips so full and red, that, had it not been for the down beginning to shade its contour, it might have belonged to a girl. The whole countenance would indeed have been too effeminate, but for a bold sparkle in the eye, which corresponded well with the manly proportions of the frame.

The subject was not half so much abashed as the sovereign. Darnley advanced confidently up the hall, then kneeling before the Queen and kissing the hand she tendered him, he looked boldly in her face and asked leave to deliver certain packets with which he was charged from his mother and kinsfolk.

‘But your mails have not yet arrived, my lord,’ said Mary. ‘You have outridden your retainers; you are the only one of your party who hath yet reached us here in our hiding-place beyond the Firth.’

She stopped in some embarrassment, unwilling that Darnley should learn how much his coming had been looked for and his arrival watched.

‘I have them with me here, your Grace,’ answered he, producing at the same time a packet from his bosom. ‘I would trust my Queen’s letters to no hands but my own, although to remind me of her I do not need to carry them next my heart.’

He dropped his voice at the latter part of his sentence, but looked her boldly in the face while he spoke, as if to mark the effect of his words. Boy as he was, he knew well how to woo a woman already, and had not been slow to learn that the reticence of true affection is the worst auxiliary in the world. He had studied his own motto to some advantage this adventurous young suitor, and now or never was the time to say—

So he kissed the fair hand once more that took the packet from his own, and added—

‘None of my servants can be here for hours, madam, and I have dared to appear before your Majesty all disordered and travel-stained. May my rudeness stand excused in the ardour of my desire to see the beauty which now dazzles me so that I can hardly look upon it, and my loyal anxiety to obey the commands of my mistress and my Queen? Am I forgiven, madam? ’Tis said that “a lady’s face should show grace”.’

‘And well it might, to such a face as yours,’ thought the Queen; but she only answered a few words of commonplace courtesy; bidding her cousin rise from his knees, and affected to busy herself in the packet of letters she had just received,—for Mary was again blushing deeply, and not unwilling to hide her confusion, in the task she had thus set herself. Truth to tell, though she had hitherto been so impervious to flattery, the words she had just heard were stealing their way very softly and pleasantly to her heart.

Seeing her thus occupied, Darnley proceeded to pay his compliments with graceful ease to the attendant ladies, finding time to note in his own mind their respective attractions, and to discover that Mary Seton was the most to his taste of all the four.

After a while, and it may be, somewhat disturbed in her studies by the merry voice of her gay suitor, who came (such is the advantage of being young) as fresh from his ride of so many hundred miles, as if he were lately out of bed, the Queen looked up, and with kindly courtesy bade him join them at the noon-day meal, then about to be served. The young courtier had the good taste to excuse himself, pleading the want of proper attire in which to meet Her Majesty at table, and reflecting in his own mind that he could satisfy the hunger which he now began to feel so keenly more comfortably alone. He saw too that he had made an agreeable impression, and wisely determined to give it time to work. So he asked permission to wait on his sovereign at supper instead, and retired to refresh himself in private, and curse the delay of his servants, whom he expected hour by hour, with some portion of his baggage.

It may easily be imagined that in the seclusion of Wemyss Castle, such an event as the arrival of a guest like Darnley created no small amount of excitement and conversation. Doubtless every point in his doublet, every hair of his head, was thoroughly discussed and criticised, in kitchen, buttery, and hall. The rumour spread like wild-fire through the Castle that this dashing springald was a suitor for the hand of the bonny Queen.

‘Set him up!’ as the Scottish lower orders say when they opine that the aspirant is hardly worthy of the prize. Nevertheless the young lord’s height, appearance, and easy manners had already won him golden opinions of those who judge chiefly by the eye, and when he had finished the best part of a capon, and a goodly stoup of Bordeaux for his breakfast, the old seneschal delivered himself of the opinion that ‘the youth was a bonny lad, an’ a fair-spoken—forbye bein’ a Stuart himsel’, an’ no that far off frae him that lies out bye yonder at Flodden!’

Had there been any dissentients, an allusion to their favourite hero, James IV., would at once have brought them over to an agreement with the majority.

But in Mary Stuart’s bower the engrossing theme was canvassed with considerably less freedom. The Queen herself was restless and ill at ease, constrained in manner and reserved in conversation. Mary Carmichael was absent on certain household duties; Mary Hamilton seldom opened her pale lips now, save at matins or vespers, when she poured from them such floods of melody as if she were indeed an angel from that heaven to which she was so obviously hastening; Mistress Beton had been too long a courtier ever to broach a fresh topic of conversation, or indeed to give an opinion frankly upon any subject whatsoever—moreover, she had no means of learning what Randolph said to all this, and she felt somewhat at a loss to form her own ideas without the assistance of her false English lover; Mary Seton alone led the charge bravely, by asking the Queen point-blank what she thought of her young kinsman.

‘Nay,’ replied Her Majesty, with a smile, ‘you would not have me give an opinion after a five minutes’ interview. The outside methinks is of fair promise; at least, if “all be good that be upcome.”’[11]

‘Aye, he’s well enough to look at,’ answered the young lady, with the air of a consummate judge. ‘Long and small, even and straight; a proper partner for a galliard, and, I should say, would grace velvet doublet and silken hose better than steel corslet and plumed head-piece. But my choice, now, would be something sterner, stronger, rougher altogether; something more of a man; like stout Earl Bothwell, for instance!’

The Queen started as if she had been stung, and answered angrily—

‘How mean ye? The one is a loyal and accomplished gentleman, the other a brawling swordsman and a traitorous rebel.’

‘A woman might have worse help at her need than the Lord Warden in jack and morion, with a score of those daring borderers at his back,’ retorted the staunch little partisan, following out, it may be, some wandering fancy of her own.

The Queen did not seem loth to pursue the subject.

‘You were talking of looks,’ said she, ‘not sword-strokes; and Bothwell, at his best, was bronzed and marred and weather-beaten, and built more like a tower than a man.’

‘That was exactly what I admired in him,’ interposed the damsel; ‘I even thought that scar over his eye became his face as it would have become none other.’

The Queen smiled once more, and resumed, in the tone of one who is looking far back into the past—

‘He certainly had more of the warrior than the courtier in him, and doubtless he hath always done his part well and knightly in the field; I will do him that justice. Poor Bothwell! he must have been ill-advised indeed when he could refuse to obey me. I thought I could have trusted him if all Scotland besides had failed me. Well, well! all must be forgiven now—and forgotten.’

She spoke the last words in a melancholy tone, and each relapsed into silence, for both the Queen and her damsels seemed to have ample food for thought; so their fingers flew over the tapestry more nimbly than ever, and the work proceeded with extraordinary perseverance till supper-time.

But if Darnley had been pleasant to look at in his travel-stained riding-gear, the most fastidious eye must have admitted that he was indeed splendidly handsome when he appeared, prepared to perform the menial offices of the Queen’s supper-table, clad in a suit of gorgeous apparel, cut in the newest fashion of the English Court. Refreshed with food and repose, sleek from the bath and perfumes of his toilet, radiant with hope and excitement, the young courtier stood before his sovereign probably the best dressed and the best looking man that day in her dominions.

After he had gone through the form of presenting Mary with the basin and ewer, which she declined, she bade him sit down at the same table with herself and her ladies, for the Queen disliked ceremony, and always dispensed with it in private to the utmost. Then did Lord Darnley strain every nerve to be agreeable, and with so partial an audience, it is needless to say, succeeded beyond his highest expectations. Skilled in those outward graces which make so good a show and are so effective in society, it was an easy task to him, even in the presence of royalty, to lead the conversation round to those topics on which he was best qualified to shine.

His descriptions of his journey, his humorous account of the difficulties he experienced in procuring horses at the different posts, with a covert allusion here and there to his impatience to get on, were listened to with laughter and interest by all—with rising colour and heaving breast by one; while in no circle probably of either kingdom could his graphic sketch of the English Court, with its petty intrigues and latest scandal, have been appreciated with such thorough zest and good-will.

It does not follow that Mary Stuart was displeased because she checked him when he mimicked her ‘good sister’ to the life, hitting, with a happy mixture of fun and malice, on some of the most prominent foibles and grotesque points in the character of ‘good Queen Bess.’

Ere the ladies rose from table they had made up their minds that this new acquisition to their society was of unspeakable merit; and later in the evening, when they discovered that he could play and sing as well as he could talk, and that his leg and foot were as beautiful as his face and hand, Mary Seton had almost decided that such courtly graces as these were worth all the ruder virtues of a less accomplished gallant; and judging from her subsequent conduct, we may fairly conclude that Mary Stuart’s opinion followed on the same side.

A few more days of the seclusion of Wemyss Castle, lightened by the lively talk and winning manners of the guest, served but to establish Darnley more securely in the good graces of his sovereign. The weather was of unexampled severity, and a deep snow prevented all attempts at out-door amusements, and especially forbade those field-sports in which Mary took such delight. The society of a handsome young gallant, fluent and accomplished, was not likely to be rated below its real value, when it represented the only amusement available to five such ladies as the Queen and her Maries, shut up in an old house during a snowstorm; and Darnley found he had free access at all hours of the day to their agreeable presence; but he had as yet enjoyed no opportunity of seeing Her Majesty alone. Mary, with her own good sense and womanly reserve, had resolved to judge for herself more at leisure ere she committed her happiness to the keeping of her possible husband, or encouraged him avowedly in his suit.

The young lord, however, impatient by disposition, and now reckless on principle, had resolved that this brief visit to the old seaside tower should determine his fate; he would never have such a chance again; and on the last day of Mary’s sojourn at Wemyss Castle he made up his mind to hazard all upon the cast.

Darnley entertained few scruples of delicacy when he had an object in view. He chose the hour when Mary Hamilton was sure to be in an oratory which the Queen had temporarily fitted up, to get the three other ladies out of his way; a few gold pieces judiciously administered induced the venerable dame who charged herself with the domestic details of the Castle, to request the presence of Mistresses Beton and Carmichael on a visit of inspection to vast hoards of linen hid away in an old walnut-wood press; then seducing Mary Seton into the long gallery under pretence of a match at billiards, or bilies, as it was called, he coolly left the game unfinished and turned the key upon that young lady, who found herself, somewhat to her dismay, a prisoner in a remote apartment of the Castle without the slightest prospect of escape. Chance, too, further favoured his designs, for a blink of sunshine had tempted the Queen out upon the battlements, and he found her there alone looking wistfully across the Firth towards the southern shore.

We are no eavesdroppers on the courtships of royalty. Turn after turn Mary Stuart paced up and down those leads, and still Darnley urged and argued and gesticulated, and still his fair companion blushed and listened and shook her head. That the interview was not entirely without results, Mary Seton gathered from what she witnessed at its conclusion. She had been released from durance by a domestic who happened to be passing the door of the gallery, and hastened immediately to excuse her absence to her Mistress. As she approached the battlements, Darnley was offering the Queen a ring, with every appearance of eagerness and agitation; and although the latter obviously declined the gift, it was with a kindliness and an embarrassment that made the refusal tantamount to an acceptance.

‘For my sake,’ said Darnley, imploringly, ‘your subject, your vassal, your slave for ever!’

‘Not yet,’ murmured the Queen, in answer; and although she spoke very low, her whisper reached the keen ears of the attentive maid-of-honour.

As Darnley left the presence he did not stop to apologise to Mary Seton for their unfinished match. His colour was high, his eye was very bright, there was an air of joyous triumph in his whole aspect and bearing; perhaps he was quite satisfied in his own mind that he had won the game.