“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 ............