to yield her place on the throne, and the reins of power were seized by the queen-mother, Catharine of Medicis, as regent for her son, Charles IX. Mary must have been prepared, under almost any circumstances, to quit a court which was now swayed by one whom, during her brief reign, she had taunted with being " a merchant's daugh- ter.'' But there were other reasons for her departure from France. Her presence was urgently needed in Scotland, which the death of her mother, a few months before, had left without a government, at a moment when it was convulsed by tlie throes of the Reforma- tion. Her kinsmen of Lorraine had ambitious projects for her marriage ; great schemes were based on her near- ness of succession to the English crown ; and both these, it was thought, might be more successfully followed out when she was seated on her native throne. The queen of England, however, interposed; and, as ISIary woidd not abandon all claim to the English throne, refused to grant her a free passage. IMary, notwithstanding, re- solved to go, and at length, after repeated delays, stiU lingering on the soil where fortune had augured so much, she reached Calais, attended thus far by the car- dinals of Guise and Lorraine, while three other uncles, D'Elboeuf, D'Aumale. and the grand prior, had come to see her safely to Edinburgh. August 14 she finally set sail, "and with 'Adieu, belle France,' sentimental verses, and a passionate chfitelar sighing at her feet in melodi- ous music, she sailed away over the summer seas," and, safely escaping the English ships-of-war Elizabeth had despatched to intercept her, reached Leith on the 19th. Her arrival on her native shores is thus beautifully de- scribed m Harper's .'l/oya32ne,Feb. 1873,p.348: "August 19, 15G1. The thickest mist and most drenching rain men remembered ever to have seen. A fog so thick that the very cannon in the harbor boom with a muf- fled sound, and the peal of bells from the lulinburgh churches sounds ominously, as if it rang out the funeral knell of the young queen. Such is the day that greets French IMary when she lands on Scottish shores. Bet- ter far for her had not this fog hid her squadron from the watchful eyes of her royal cousin. Better that she had fallen then into the hands of queen Elizabeth than to have become her wretched prisoner seven years later, shorn of that good name which is woman's chief protec- tion— always and everywhere her best ' safe-conduct.' " A great change had taken place in Scotland since IMary had left her coiuitry nearly thirteen years ago. The Roman Catholic religion was then supreme ; and, under the direction of cardinal Beatoun, the Romish clergy displayed a fierceness of intolerance which seemed to aim at nothing short of the utter extirpation of every seed of dissent and reform. The same causes, however, which gave strength to the ecclesiastics gave strength also, though more slowly, to the great body of the peo- ple ; and at length, after the repeated losses of Flodden and Fala, and Sohvay Moss anil Pinkie — which, by the fall of nearly the whole lay nobility and leading men of the kingdom, brought all classes within the influence of public events — the energies, physical and mental, of the entire nation were drawn out, and under the guid- ance of the reformer Knox expended themselves with the furj' of awakened mdignation upon the whole fabric of the ancient religion. The queen-regent died June 10, 15G0. In August following the estates convened, adopted and approved the Calvinistic Confession of Faith, and, abolishing the Roman Catholic religion, for- bade at the same time the administering of the mass or attendance upon it — the penalty for the third offence be- ing death. "On the morning of Aug. 25, 15G0," saj's Burton (iv, 89), "the Romish hierarchy was supreme; in the evening of the same d.ay Calvinistic Protestant- ism was established in its stead." Hardly a year had passed since these changes had been effected. A strange atmosphere this for Marv, who had been taught in France to abhor Protestant opinions. But, fortunately for Mary, she had enjoyed a training which fltted her well for the part she was now to play. Had she not
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