Ir is at once a remarkable fact and a striking exemplification of the vitality of poetic justice in history that, from among modern Scotch Puritans, from the spiritual descendants of John Knox, should have come three of the noblest and most effective modern vindications of Mary Stuart.

We refer to the work by Mr. Hosack noticed in our last number, to that which we make the subject of the present article, and to the poem of Bothwell, one of the finest in the entire range of English literature. Professor Aytoun's poem is accompanied by a body of historical notes, which are in themselves a model of legal argument and dialectic power, covering the entire period of the history of Mary Stuart in Scotland. And yet these three writers are very far from being looked upon by their countrymen as the holders of singular opinions. It may be news to many persons, but it is, nevertheless, the fact that they merely reflect the prevailing feeling in Scotland concerning its unfortunate queen of three centuries agone, murdered in an English prison. The sentiment of the great body of the Scotch people, gentle and simple, Puritan and Catholic, is to this day decidedly in her favor, and the superficial reader who, trusting to a superficial Froude, sneers at Mary Stuart, is safer from reproof in New York than in Edinburgh.

Mr. Caird's work, of which the second edition was published last year, appears to be made up of the ma

Mary Stuart. Her Guilt or Innocence. An

Inquiry into the Secret History of her Times. By Alexander McNeel Caird. Edinburgh: Adam &

Charles Black. 1869.

Bothwell: A Poem in Six Parts. By W. Edmonstoune Aytoun, D.C.L. Author of Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Bon Gaultier's Ballads, etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

terial of a series of lectures delivered by him in some of the Scotch cities, and, like Mr. Hosack's work, is marked with evidences of great research, ability, and a thorough knowledge of the country, the people, and the times under discussion.

Like Mr. Hosack, Mr. Caird convicts the late English historian, Froude, of numerous disgraceful blunders, and several-well we can find no term properly to describe the performance but-palpable falsehoods. Mr. Caird does not undertake to write a full and connected history of Mary Stuart or of her reign in Scotland. He seeks mainly to unravel the mystery of the intrigues, plots, and conspirations by which that unfortunate queen was surrounded and pursued from the moment she set foot in her kingdom. And he does it successfully. In all history, there is no record of a band of greater villains than the nobles who surrounded Mary's throne, or of more devilish abettors than their English allies. The time is not far off when, in spite of falsified history, Mary Stuart must be held innocent of the crimes of which her very accusers themselves were alone guilty. Mr. Caird enters gracefully on his subject. Three centuries ago, a French fleet sailed up the Frith of Clyde, and cast anchor at Dumbarton. It took on board a little girl, six years of age -a merry creature who had not a care in the world-hoisted the flag of Scotland, and bore her away to the coast of France. There passed with her in the same ship a stripling of seventeen, her illegitimate brother, (afterward known as the Earl of Murray,) who, though incapable of inheritance, was brought up in the most intimate family intercourse with

her; young enough to engage the sisterly affection of her warm heart, old enough to be already her trusted counsellor and guide. His life was to be a continued betrayal of her confidence. But whatever wild thoughts may have passed through his busy brain, neither of them could have dreamed in those early days of the frightful tragedies in which they were to become the chief actors. In the yet distant future he was to usurp her place and power, she to become his miserable prisoner; and it was all to end at last in his being shot down, without law, at the summit of his greatness, and in her being doomed to die, under the forms of law, on an English scaffold. though their hearts were light on this summer voyage, it was not without its dangers.

Yet,

Twelve years later, a fleet sailed from sunny France, again bearing the same girl, now budding toward womanhood. It steered for the Frith of Forth. There is no laughter now. Her first great sorrow has come upon her early. She is deeply clothed in mourning-a widow at eighteen. Again an English fleet watched to intercept her. Again she escaped narrowly, losing one of her vessels. She has been queen of France. One One blow has deprived her of a husband and a crown. She claims to be queen of England. That claim rests on strong grounds of law. It is to be the dream of her life, and she is never to realize it. She is the acknowledged queen of Scotland; but she lands on her native shore with sad forebodings and a heavy heart. No one has ever charged her with having misconducted herself before that time; yet such was the distracted state of her country, such the weakness of her authority, that she said before she set out on this voyage, "Perhaps it were better for me to die than to live."

Less than six busy years of troubled

government and we see her again-cn the Frith of Solway. She has been despoiled of her Scottish crown. She is flying for her life in a fishing-boat. "For ninety miles," she writes, “I rode across the country without lighting or drawing bridle; slept on the bare floor; no food but oatmeal; without the company of a female; not daring to travel except by stealth at night." And now the die is cast, and, in spite of many warnings, she this time throws herself on the generosity of England.

Then follow nineteen years of bitter captivity:

"Now blooms the lily by the bank,

The primrose on the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen o' a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang."

At last we see a long hall in the old castle of Fotheringay; a platform laid with black-the actors and spectators all clothed in black. There comes in, unsupported, to die, a lady of noble presence. She has been wickedly denied the aid of her spiritual comforter, and, alone with God, has administered to herself the last sacrament of her religion, without the blessing or counsel of a minister. Even her latest moments are disturbed by theological dispute. But she is calm, and resigned to God's will. She lays her head on the block. The executioner strikes and makes a ghastly wound. She does not even stir. He strikes again, but his work is incomplete; and with a third blow the life and sorrows of Mary Stuart are brought to an end.

It is one of the great problems of history, says Mr. Caird, whether these terrible calamities were brought upon her by her own wickedness or by the contrivance of others.

We have reason to believe that the child is now living who, as man or

woman, will hear and see the last mention in history of Good Queen Bess.

Of all the humbugs of history, the reputation manufactured for Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, is at once the most insolent and the most disgusting. We do not care to give a personal opinion of this woman, and will accept, for the present, her character as mildly described by the historian Robertson, which is to the effect that she was an habitual and mean liar, a peevish, bad-tempered, vacillating, untrust worthy sovereign, whose parsimony, and variableness, and small economy would have ruined herself and her kingdom but for the fact that she had a great statesman by her, and that good luck continually picked her out of the imbroglios into which she had fallen. She was a vain, bad-tempered, irresolute, deceitful old woman. And this is as lenient a view of Elizabeth as could be taken of her with the historic lights possessed by Robertson.

But, compared with what we now know her to have been from the results of modern discoveries among official and state paper records, Robertson has here painted an angel of loveliness. And just in proportion as Elizabeth has fallen on the historic page, Mary Stuart is elevated by every fresh discovery of original documentary evidence. She was, indeed, as Mr. Caird writes, a winning, gentle-hearted woman, and the correspondence of her own time, before men's hearts were hardened against her by passion, bears much testimony to her virtues.

Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, even during her war with England, wrote of "her great wisdom for her years, her modesty, her judgment in the wise handling of herself and her matters." And another of the English ambassadors, who became one of her deadliest enemies,

says of her only a few months before her grievous calamities were brought upon her, "There is one cheer and one countenance always on the queen." Even after she was imprisoned in Lochleven, Throckmorton wrote of her to Elizabeth, "The lords speak of the queen with respect and reverence." Lord Scrope said, "She has an eloquent tongue and a discreet head, stout courage, and a liberal heart." And Sir Francis Knollys reported of her, "She desireth much to hear of hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all approved hardy men of her country, although her enemies, and she concealeth no cowardness, even in her friends." Lethington wrote of her soon after her return to Scotland, "She doth declare a wisdom far exceeding her age."

After she was uncrowned, Murray and his council recorded of her, that "God had endowed her with many good and excellent gifts and virtues ;" and he spoke of her in the same way in private.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, after having had the custody of the Queen of Scots during fifteen years of her imprisonment in England, was consulted by Elizabeth on the subject of a treaty for her liberation. She desired espe

cially to know from him for her guidance, whether Mary's promises could be relied on if she were free. Shrewsbury's answer was, "I believe that if the Queen of Scots promises any thing, she will not break her word."

Her frequent and earnest pleadings with foreign powers for justice and mercy to her subjects cannot be read without interest and admiration. Her letters have been gathered from every corner of the earth, and every page of them marks the elegance and simplicity of her thoughts. If any man who has a prejudice against her will sit down and read that correspondence, in which she treats of all the

incidents of life, he will rise from the perusal with a different notion, not of her mind only, but her heart. These are the records which we can read now, exactly as they dropped from her pen, untainted by the bitterness of party, as so little else which concerns her was permitted to be. And we can see her there as she disclosed herself to her most confidential friends, whether in the highest business of state or in the trivial affairs of daily life.

Mr. Caird's plan does not embrace a connected narrative of Mary's reign, and we regret that he has found it necessary to omit a narrative of the treacherous manner in which the destruction of the Earl of Huntly was brought about. On Mary's arrival in Scotland, every one was surprised that Mary should select for her chief state councillor her half-brother, the Lord James, instead of the Earl of Huntly. No one knew that Mary had been craftily persuaded by James that Huntly was not loyal. The plan of her brother was as wicked as it was deep. It was at once to deprive Mary of a loyal adviser and a powerful friend, and to raise his own fortunes on Huntly's ruin. It is curious to see how all this affair is ingeniously misrepresented by Mr. Froude in his so-called history. Yielding to James's solicitations, begun years before, Mary, after creating him Earl of Mar, created him Earl of Murray. But this latter title he did not wish to assert until he could obtain the lands appertaining to the title, which he had procured while living in ostensible friendship with the man he had doomed to ruin. The lands were in Huntly's possession, and Murray made up his mind to have them. "But Huntly," says Mr. Froude, "had refused to part with them." Who was Huntly? He was earl chancellor of the kingdom, a man aged fifty-two, a powerful Catholic nobleman, who could

bring twenty thousand spears into the field. He had done good service for Mary's mother against the English. English gold had not stained his palm. He was a man marked for saying that he liked not the "manner of Henry VIII.'s wooing." He had wanted Mary to land at Aberdeen, was at the head of the loyal party on Mary's arrival, and had sought to warn her of her brother's craft and ambition. Mr. Froude thus describes him, (vol. vii. p. 454:)

"Of all the reactionary noblemen in Scotland the most powerful and dangerous was notoriously the Earl of Huntly. It was Huntly who had proposed the landing at

Aberdeen. In his own house the chief of the house of Gordon had never so much a

affected to comply with the change of rež. gion," etc.

What depravity! Would not change his religion, nor even have the decency to affect to comply! Positively an atrocious character! Nevertheless, so perfect is the command of a philosophical historian over his feelings that these dreadful facts are recorded without comment. It is evident that the lands of such a wretch as Huntly ought to be given to one so "“Godfearing" as Murray. "A number of causes combined at this moment to draw attention to Huntly." But, all counted, the number is just two-one of them utterly frivolous, and the other, "he had refused to give up the lands." Mr. Froude is now candid, and tells us that Murray "resolved to anticipate attack, (none was dreamed of.) to carry the queen with him to visit the recusant lord in his own stronghold, and either to drive him into a premature rebellion or force him to submit to the existing government."

Murray's reasons for such a step," continues Mr. Froude," are intelligi

Mr. Froude, by "reactionary," means that he was not a disciple of John Knox; by "dangerous," that he was a man who would defend his religion.

He." Perfectly. "It is less easy," he continues, "to understand why Mary Stuart consented to it." And then Mr. Froude proceeds to wonder over it with John Knox's guesses, and his own "if," "perhaps," and "may be." Less easy indeed! It is utterly impossible, unless one consents to look at Mary Stuart as she was a young woman easily influenced through her affections, and with a sincere sisterly attachment for the man in whom she failed to recognize her worst enemy. Difficult indeed to understand the suicidal measure of ruining the most powerful Catholic nobleman in Scotland, and strengthening the hands of the most powerful Protestant leader. Huntly's family," says Mr. Froude, "affirmed that the trouble which happened to the Gordons was for the sincere and loyal affection which they had to the queen's preservation," (vii. 456.) And they were right. We leave Mr. Froude to speculate on the malicious motive Mary Stuart must have had for thus lopping off her right hand. Murray now manages to draw the queen and her attendants over moor and mountain two hundred and fifty miles to Tarnway, within the lands of the earldom of Murray. She was entirely guided by him, and he used her authority to compass his personal ends and weaken her throne. Alexander Gordon at first refused to open the gates of Inverness Castle to the queen, but complied the next day, on the order of Huntly. Murray had Gordon immediately hung, and his head set on the castle wall. Mr. Froude describes this brutal murder as "strangling a wolf-cub in the heart of the den," (vol. vii. p. 457,) all that Murray does being of course lovely. Mary was now surrounded by Murray and his friends, who poisoned her mind against the Huntlys with stories that the earl meant to force her into 2 marriage with his son, and had other VOL. XI.-15

designs against her person and royal authority; and Mary believed them. "Whereupon," writes Randolph to Cecil-for Murray had brought his English friend, Elizabeth's servant, along with him-" whereupon there was good pastime." Huntly yielded all that was demanded of him. His castles and houses were seized, plundered, stripped, and he was a ruined man. Lady Huntly spoke sad truth when, leading Murray's messenger into the chapel of the house, she said to him before the altar, "Good friend, you see here the envy that is borne unto my husband; would he have forsaken God and his religion, as those that are now about the queen, my husband would never have been put as he now is," (vol. vii. p. 458.) Mr. Froude reports this incident, and very properly spoils its effect by the statement that Lady Huntly was "reported by the Protestants to be a witch." Huntly was driven to take up arms.. "Swift as lightning," says Mr. Froude,. with yellow-cover tinge of phrase, "Murray was on his track." And now "swift as lightning"-sure sign. of mischief meant-Mr. Froude moves: on with his narrative, omitting essential facts, but not omitting a characteristic piece of handiwork. News came from the south that Bothwell had escaped out of Edinburgh Castle ;: "not," glides in our philosophic histo-rian-"not, it was supposed, without the queen's knowledge," (vol. vii. p. 459.) After a wonderful victory of his two thousand men over Huntly's five hundred-a mere slaughterMurray brought the queen certain letters of the Earl of Sutherland, found, he said, in the pockets of the dead Earl of Huntly, and showing treasonable correspondence. They were forgeries; but they answered his purpose. "Lord John, (Huntly's son,) after a full confession, was beheaded in the market-place at Aber