Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/402

Mary of Guise failing, was seriously ill, and on 4 Dec. Francis and Mary issued a commission to the Marquis d'Elbœuf to act as their lieutenant-general in Scotland (ib. ii. 305, 368). But the opponents of the Guises caused delay ; and when in January 1660 D'Elbœuf set sail, he was driven back by a storm, and the prospect of a Huguenot rising detained him in France. On the 22nd an English fleet was in the Forth (ib. ii. 581, 600). On 27 Feb. the treaty of Berwick was concluded between England and the Scottish lords (ib. ii. 781). The Guises despatched Monti uc, bishop of Valence, to the Scots with offers which Mary, who had now somewhat recovered, stigmatised as 'shameful as well for the honour of God as the reputation of the king' (ib. ii. 844, 906). D Oysel had been obliged to evacuate Fife, from which he had driven the protestants, and, according to Knox (ii. 8), drawn from Mary the exclamation, ' Where is now John Knox his God? My God is now stronger than his, yea, even in Fyff ' (Stevenson, ii. 565, 711). When Lord Grey, at the end of March, led an English army to join in the siege of Leith, Lord Erskine, who had maintained an attitude of neutrality, gave the sick queen a refuge in the castle of Edinburgh (ib. ii. 915). Elizabeth desired peace, and would not have the castle besieged. Randolph, however, 'feared the dowager's long practice in craft and subtility,' and 'would not report what she had been heard to say of the queen's life and behaviour' (ib. ii. 957). Earlier in the year she had tried to discredit Chatelherault by forging a letter from him to the French king (ib. ii. 906). Elizabeth withdrew her veto on the siege of the castle when it was represented to her that the dowager by sending up and down continually did more harm than five hundred Frenchmen. The Bishop of Valence, after being delayed three weeks by Norfolk at Berwick, reached Edinburgh on 22 April 1560, and found Mary undismayed by her troubles (ib. ii. 1056; Teitlet, i. 574). He was empowered to offer the congregation such a reduction of the French force as would render it merely sufficient to garrison the strong places, but Mary insisted on terms which the lords would not accept, and the negotiations finally broke down on their refusal to renounce their league with England (ib. i. 592-5; Stevenson, ii. 1076). On the 29th she wrote that she was putting the castle in a state of defence, and was better in health, though still lame and far gone with a dropsy (ib. ii. 1093). She had been her own doctor and surgeon (ib. iii. 104). It would indeed have been a marvellous recovery if she had really, as asserted by Knox, who surpasses himself in the brutality of his reference to her sufferings, been able to see from the castle, at a distance of over two miles, the corpses hung along the wall of Leith after a successful sally on 7 May, and hopping in her joy had remarked, ' Yonder are the fairest tapestrie that ever I saw' (Knox, ii. 67). She again sought to engage the besiegers in negotiation, and wept over the misery of the country ; but the English commanders, who intercepted the letters in which she encouraged D'Oysel to hold out till the promised succour came from France, thought ' her blubbering was not for. nothing (Stevenson, iii. 97, 104). "Sot more than a week before her death she was ' promising the neutrals great mountains ' to abstain from the congregation until they saw what came of the Bishop of Valence's new mission (Haynes, Burghley State Papers, p. 321 ). Throckmorton urged Cecil for the love of God to ' provide that she were rid from thence, for she hath the heart of a man of war f (Stevenson, iii. 168). On 8 June, feeling herself dying, she had an affecting interview with the lords of the congregation, asked them to believe that she had favoured the weal of Scotland as well as of France, and besought them earnestly to acknowledge their duty to their queen, keep their ancient friendship with France, and arrange for the departure of both the French and English troops from the realm (ib. p. 172 ; Lesley, p. 289). She did not refuse to see the preacher Willock, and ' did openly confess that there was no salvation but by the death of Jesus Christ. But of the Mass we heard not her Confession, and some said she was anointed of the papistical manner ' (Knox, ii. 69). She died on 11 June 1560 before one o'clock in the morning, while the English and French ambassadors were still discussing preliminaries at Newcastle (, iii. 191, 206;, p. 325; Diurnal, pp.59, 276; , Illustrations, i. 329 ; cf. , iii. 194 ; , ii. 71). A funeral oration was pronounced at Notre-Dame on 12 Aug. by Claude d'Espence, which was printed at Paris in the next year. Her burial had been deferred until parliament should meet on 10 July, and it was ultimately settled that she shouid be buried in France. Knox says that because 'the preachers refused to allow superstitious rites she was lappit in a cope of lead until the 19 Oct., when she was carried to France' (ii. 160). But it would appear that it was not until March 1561 that the body was removed to Fecamp in Normandy, and in July taken thence to Rheims, where it was buried