A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to

  Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely

  denying that he had any knowledge of the late bloody business; and

  there they were joined by the EARL BOTHWELL and some other nobles.

  With their help, they raised eight thousand men; returned to

  Edinburgh, and drove the assassins into England. Mary soon

  afterwards gave birth to a son - still thinking of revenge.

  That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his

  late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural

  enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell

  instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley.

  Bothwell had such power over her that he induced her even to pardon

  the assassins of Rizzio. The arrangements for the Christening of

  the young Prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most

  important people at the ceremony, where the child was named JAMES:

  Elizabeth being his godmother, though not present on the occasion.

  A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his

  father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small-pox, she

  sent her own physician to attend him. But there is reason to

  apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she

  knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to

  one of the late conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley,

  'for that it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away.'

  It is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador in

  France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to Glasgow,

  feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much.

  If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's

  content; for she induced him to go back with her to Edinburgh, and

  to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city

  called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. One

  Sunday night, she remained with him until ten o'clock, and then

  left him, to go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given

  in celebration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants.

  At two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great

  explosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms.

  Darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at some

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  distance. How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by

  gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and strangely

  committed, it is impossible to discover. The deceitful character

  of Mary, and the deceitful character of Elizabeth, have rendered

  almost every part of their joint history uncertain and obscure.

  But, I fear that Mary was unquestionably a party to her husband's

  murder, and that this was the revenge she had threatened. The

  Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried out in the

  streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on the

  murderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in the public

  places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, and the Queen as his

  accomplice; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself

  already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner

  by force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The women

  particularly are described as having been quite frantic against the

  Queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with

  terrific vehemence.

  Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife had lived

  together but a month, when they were separated for ever by the

  successes of a band of Scotch nobles who associated against them

  for the protection of the young Prince: whom Bothwell had vainly

  endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly have

  murdered, if the EARL OF MAR, in whose hands the boy was, had not

  been firmly and honourably faithful to his trust. Before this

  angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner and

  mad, nine miserable years afterwards. Mary being found by the

  associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisoner

  to Lochleven Castle; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake,

  could only be approached by boat. Here, one LORD LINDSAY, who was

  so much of a brute that the nobles would have done better if they

  had chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign her

  abdication, and appoint Murray, Regent of Scotland. Here, too,

  Murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state.

  She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, dull

  prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the

  moving shadows of the water on the room walls; but she could not

  rest there, and more than once tried to escape. The first time she

  had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washerwoman,

  but, putting up her hand to prevent one of the boatmen from

  lifting her veil, the men suspected her, seeing how white it was,

  and rowed her back again. A short time afterwards, her fascinating

  manners enlisted in her cause a boy in the Castle, called the

  little DOUGLAS, who, while the family were at supper, stole the

  keys of the great gate, went softly out with the Queen, locked the

  gate on the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking

  the keys as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by

  another Douglas, and some few lords; and, so accompanied, rode away

  on horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men.

  Here, she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she

  had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the Regent to

  yield to his lawful Queen. Being a steady soldier, and in no way

  discomposed although he was without an army, Murray pretended to

  treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal to

  her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarter of an hour he

  cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride on horse-back

  of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at Dundrennan Abbey,

  whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions.

  Mary Queen of Scots came to England - to her own ruin, the trouble

  of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many - in the year one

  thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. How she left it and the

  world, nineteen years afterwards, we have now to see.

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  SECOND PART

  WHEN Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money and even

  without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to

  Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of

  Royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish

  subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, as her

  character was already known in England to be a very different one

  from what she made it out to be, she was told in answer that she

  must first clear herself. Made uneasy by this condition, Mary,

  rather than stay in England, would have gone
to Spain, or to

  France, or would even have gone back to Scotland. But, as her

  doing either would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it

  was decided that she should be detained here. She first came to

  Carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle,

  as was considered necessary; but England she never left again.

  After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing

  herself, Mary, advised by LORD HERRIES, her best friend in England,

  agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen

  who made them would attend to maintain them before such English

  noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint for that purpose. Accordingly,

  such an assembly, under the name of a conference, met, first at

  York, and afterwards at Hampton Court. In its presence Lord

  Lennox, Darnley's father, openly charged Mary with the murder of

  his son; and whatever Mary's friends may now say or write in her

  behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murray produced

  against her a casket containing certain guilty letters and verses

  which he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, she

  withdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that

  she was then considered guilty by those who had the best

  opportunities of judging of the truth, and that the feeling which

  afterwards arose in her behalf was a very generous but not a very

  reasonable one.

  However, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, an honourable but rather weak

  nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly because he

  was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded by artful

  plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would

  like to marry the Queen of Scots - though he was a little

  frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. This idea being

  secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen of Elizabeth's court,

  and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (because it was

  objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), Mary

  expressed her approval of it, and the King of France and the King

  of Spain are supposed to have done the same. It was not so quietly

  planned, though, but that it came to Elizabeth's ears, who warned

  the Duke 'to be careful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his

  head upon.' He made a humble reply at the time; but turned sulky

  soon afterwards, and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the

  Tower.

  Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began to be

  the centre of plots and miseries.

  A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and it

  was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It was

  followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic

  sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, place Mary on the throne,

  and restore the unreformed religion. It is almost impossible to

  doubt that Mary knew and approved of this; and the Pope himself was

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  so hot in the matter that he issued a bull, in which he openly

  called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen' of England, excommunicated

  her, and excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to

  obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got into London, and was

  found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London's gate.

  A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was found in the

  chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, being put

  upon the rack, that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON, a rich

  gentleman who lived across the Thames, near Southwark. This John

  Felton, being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted

  the placard on the Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within

  four days, taken to St. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and

  quartered. As to the Pope's bull, the people by the reformation

  having thrown off the Pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for

  the Pope's throwing off them. It was a mere dirty piece of paper,

  and not half so powerful as a street ballad.

  On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the poor Duke

  of Norfolk was released. It would have been well for him if he had

  kept away from the Tower evermore, and from the snares that had

  taken him there. But, even while he was in that dismal place he

  corresponded with Mary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began

  to plot again. Being discovered in correspondence with the Pope,

  with a view to a rising in England which should force Elizabeth to

  consent to his marriage with Mary and to repeal the laws against

  the Catholics, he was re-committed to the Tower and brought to

  trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the Lords

  who tried him, and was sentenced to the block.

  It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and

  between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane

  woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the

  blood of people of great name who were popular in the country.

  Twice she commanded and countermanded the execution of this Duke,

  and it did not take place until five months after his trial. The

  scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, and there he died like a brave

  man. He refused to have his eyes bandaged, saying that he was not

  at all afraid of death; and he admitted the justice of his

  sentence, and was much regretted by the people.

  Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving

  her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would

  admit it. All such proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for

  her release, required that admission in some form or other, and

  therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both women being artful and

  treacherous, and neither ever trusting the other, it was not likely

  that they could ever make an agreement. So, the Parliament,

  aggravated by what the Pope had done, made new and strong laws

  against the spreading of the Catholic religion in England, and

  declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen and her

  successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It would

  have done more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation.

  Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects of

  religious people - or people who called themselves so - in England;

  that is to say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those

  who belonged to the Unreformed Church, and those who were called

  the Puritans, because they said that they wanted to have everything

  very pure and plain in all the Church service. These last were for

  the most part an uncomfortable people, who thought it highly

  meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses,

  and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But they were powerful too,

  and very much in earnest, and they were one and all the determined

  enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling in England

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  was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which

  Protestants
were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores

  of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with

  every cruelty that can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of

  the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-two, one of the

  greatest barbarities ever committed in the world took place at

  Paris.

  It is called in history, THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, because

  it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on Saturday

  the twenty-third of August. On that day all the great leaders of

  the Protestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS) were assembled

  together, for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing

  honour to the marriage of their chief, the young King of Navarre,

  with the sister of CHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who

  then occupied the French throne. This dull creature was made to

  believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about him that the

  Huguenots meant to take his life; and he was persuaded to give

  secret orders that, on the tolling of a great bell, they should be

  fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered

  wherever they could be found. When the appointed hour was close at

  hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken

  into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. The

  moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that

  night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the

  houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children,

  and flung their bodies into the streets. They were shot at in the

  streets as they passed along, and their blood ran down the gutters.

  Upwards of ten thousand Protestants were killed in Paris alone; in

  all France four or five times that number. To return thanks to

  Heaven for these diabolical murders, the Pope and his train

  actually went in public procession at Rome, and as if this were not

  shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to commemorate the

  event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murders were to

  these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon the

  doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peace

  afterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the

  Huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling dead before him;