Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/511

A.D. 1582.] man appears conclusive as human evidence can make it, that Mary really was innocent of any concern in that murder.

On the scaffold Morton flung himself on his face, and rolled about in paroxysms of agony, with direful groans and contortions. The day after his execution, his servant, Binning, who had been proved to have been employed in the murder, was also put to death; but his cousin and confidential friend, Archibald Douglas, who was also an active agent in the murder, escaped into England. Morton had made this man a judge of the court of session after his having become an assassin; and being asked on his trial how he could reconcile this fact with his professed horror of the murder, he was silent.

The fall of Morton and the display of independence in the young King James opened up the most extravagant hopes in the minds of the friends of Queen Mary, and of the Papists in general. They were ready to believe that James would soon show his regard for his mother, and a deep sense of her wrongs. Morton had been the stern adherent of Protestantism, scandalous as he was; but who should say that Aubigny, educated in France, and with many friends and relatives there, would not incline to favour the Papists, and that James, under his guidance, though educated by the disciples of Knox, might not, young as he was, return to the religion of his ancestors? Persons, the Jesuit, was enthusiastic in this behalf, and he dispatched Waytes, an English Popish clergyman, to Holyrood, and soon after Creighton, a Scottish Jesuit. These emissaries soon returned with the most flattering accounts of their reception by James and by his ministers. Probably, in prospect of no very friendly relations with Elizabeth, the advisors of James might adopt the policy of conciliating the Romanists, and thus securing the ancient support of France, and also of Spain. Be that as it may, James professed to feel deeply the justice in time by supporting instead of destroying the wrongs of his mother, and to cherish great filial affection for her. He assured them that he would always receive with favour such persons as came with an introduction from her, and he consented to receive an Italian Catholic into his Court as his tutor in that language.

Elated by these tidings, Persons and Creighton hastened to Paris in May of 1582. There happened to be present an extraordinary number of persons interested in the cause of Popery—the Duke of Guise; Castelli, the Papal nuncio; Tassis, the Spanish ambassador; Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow; Matthieu, the Provincial of the French Jesuits; and Dr. Allen, the provost of the seminary of Douay. They all agreed that Mary ought to be restored without deposing James; that they should reign jointly; and Persons was dispatched to Spain to solicit assistance, and Creighton to the Pope for the same object. Both missions were successful: Philip gave 12,000 crowns to relieve the necessities of James, and the Pope engaged to pay the expenses of his body-guard for twelve months. Both Mary and James assented to this proposal, Mary offering to leave all the exercise of power in James's hands.

Successful as this scheme appeared, every movement in it had been watched by the Court of England, and a counterplot of a most startling kind was set on foot. The Earl of Gowrie, the son of the murderer Ruthven, was induced to invite the young monarch to his castle of Ruthven, when he suddenly made him prisoner. The government was then seized by the Earl of Mar, the Master of Glamis, the Lord Oliphant, and others. Lennox, the king's chief minister, escaped to France, but died soon after, as was suspected, from poison. Arran, the successful destroyer of Morton, was thrown into prison. The pulpit was set to work to proclaim that there had been a plot to restore "the limb of Satan," the lewd Queen Mary, with all the ceremonial of the mass; and that Lennox was at the bottom of it, though he died professing himself a staunch Protestant.

The news of these changes was kept from Mary as long as possible, and her confinement rendered closer than ever. When, at last, it penetrated into her prison, she expected nothing less from the desperate character of his and her own enemies than that her son would be murdered to make way for the designs of England. Roused by her maternal solicitude, she wrote a letter to Elizabeth from the sick bed on which she was confined, speaking out plainly of her long series of wrongs. She retraced her injuries from the moment in which she fatally took refuge in England; the flagrant injustice of her continued and even aggravated captivity, although she had been pronounced guilty at York and Westminster. What had she done, she demanded, to Elizabeth? If there were any crimes which had not been already charged against her and refuted, she desired to know them. But, she added, she knew too well what was her real and only crime: it was being next heir to Elizabeth's throne. The queen had, however, no reason to be alarmed, for she herself was fast hastening to the grave. But was the same system of persecution to be continued to her son? She called on Elizabeth to stand in imagination, as she must one day stand in reality, with her before the throne of the Almighty, and to do justice in time by supporting instead of destroying the interests of her son, and liberating her, to end her days in retirement and peace.

But the position of affairs in Scotland was calculated to excite the utmost vigilance of both France and England. Henry III. saw with terror the young King of Scotland in the hands of the English faction, and dispatched thither La Motte Fenelon and Maigneville to encourage James to call together the estates, to insist by their means on his liberty, and on the liberation of his mother to govern with him. The English Court, on the other hand, instructed its agents, Bowes and Davidson, to demand the dismissal of the French envoys, and to show him the danger of the measures which they proposed. James appeared to listen to both parties; and in order, ostensibly, to consult on their advice, he summoned a council of the nobility to meet at the castle of St. Andrews. Once in their midst, James felt his freedom; and to prevent any contest on the question, published a pardon to all who had been concerned in the "Raid of Ruthven," as it was called, or the conspiracy of Gowrie. This bold stroke of the young king so took the English Court by surprise that Walsingham was sent, notwithstanding his age and important duties at home, to the Scottish Court. Walsingham must have been surprised at the small success which, attended his mission, for James received him with little consideration, appeared to regard his communications